Until now patients have to go through the painful and disfiguring process of cutting out or destroying the skin bearing the tattoo. This has been the only way to remove the dye markings and a major scar has been the usual legacy of a treated tattoo. All of these methods, other than over-tattooing, destroy the skin surface.

An effective, non-destructive way of removing tattoos is now available, having been pioneered in Glasgow over about 15 years.

The Pulsed Ruby and YAG lasers are the key to this recent success. These lasers generate very short pulses of laser light of similar duration to a camera flash. The light from the laser is poorly absorbed by blood vessels and the surrounding normal skin, therefore producing only minimal injury to the skin.

The beam is absorbed, however, by the skin’s melanin or brown tan pigment and by carbon particles, which make up most black tattoo pigments. The lasers are less effective against coloured dyes, though some success has been achieved. The lasers beam of short, high-powered bursts shatters the pigment particles of the tattoo, while disturbing little else in the structure of the skin.

The treatment is not only safe and effective but also well tolerated by patients. In many cases no anaesthesia is required. Patients describe the sensation as similar to being snapped with a stretched elastic band. The shattered dye and pigment cells are partly carried away by the body’s natural clean up mechanisms and partly shed from the skin surface as in a peeling sunburn.

Patients wear goggles during the treatments to protect their eyes from the intense light.

On exposure to the laser beam, the tattooed skin turns white and then swells somewhat as the whiteness fades. To the patient, the treated area feels like a mild burn, which can last up to several hours. It is often followed by the appearance of small blisters. In contrast to other methods, in which the skin is destroyed, no special care of the area is necessary.