Radiotherapy skin marking with lancets versus electric marking pen - Comfort, satisfaction, effectiveness and cosmesis results from the randomized, double-blind COMFORTATTOO trial

Clinical experience of a tattoo application device

“…This was an inadvertent observational finding from the study which resulted in the additional benefit of treatment staff being able to easily visualise and locate these tattoos throughout a patient’s treatment course. This is consistent with the findings from Pires and colleagues [15] .…”

“…The use of traditional Lancets is also the current method of tattoo application in our department. Similar to the current study, patients found the Comfort Marker tattoo device to be reasonably painless with 44% describing the procedure painless, compared to 36% of patients rating their pain as 0 to 1 in the current study [15] . This is despite the fact that different injection depths were used in the two studies (Pires et al – 0.2 mm, current study – 0.4 mm).…”

“…Further investigation would be required to evaluate if a shallower injection depth would result in tattoo fading. Although the study by Pires and colleagues did not assess long term visibility of the Comfort Marker tattoos and used a tattoo depth of 0.2 mm, similar to the current study, they did state that these tattoos did not often fade and tended to remain well-defined [15] . Interestingly to note, one patient did show evidence of potential tattoo fading at the final follow up visit which suggests that tattoo fading may be seen in some patients in the longer term.…”

“…To the author’s knowledge, this is only the second study reporting outcomes on the use of the Comfort Marker tattoo device. Pires and colleagues conducted a randomised trial comparing the use of the Comfort Marker tattoo device with tattooing using traditional Lancets [15] . The use of traditional Lancets is also the current method of tattoo application in our department.…”