Breast Implants + Tattoos + Antibiotics?

I am one of the minority of plastic surgeons who DO recommend oral antibiotic prophylaxis with dental work, or any invasive procedure which produces a bacteremia (there aren't many, but dental work is the most common). I have seen 5 cases (over the 27 years I have been performing breast augmentation) of late unilateral and 1 bilateral cpasular contracture after many years of absolute softness (examined and verified), where the only relatable occurrences are dental procedures, including cleaning. No trauma or other identifiable cause.

The hypothesis is that it's not JUST exposure to the bacteria in your mouth that get into your blood stream after dental work, but also a minor, often unremembered bump or bruise to the breast (or breasts) that allow those circulating bloodstream bacteria to "get into" the space around your implants and stimulate capsular contracture from the bacteria-induced biofilm. Antibiotics may not prevent the minor trauma, but will help to kill the bacteria before a critical exposure is reached IF such a trauma and exposure coincide.

So, you ask about tattooing. The skin is indeed damaged. but this is not a bacteria-filled environment like the mouth, so unless you have chronic acne issues or the tattoo is extensive, I would not recommend antibiotics here either. Dental work, colonoscopic polyp removal, cervical cone, etc. YES, but tattoo session or ear piercing, NO.

Thanks for asking! Best wishes! Dr. Tholen

Antibiotics are overused for most patients. If there are concerns that your tatoo person is not using sterile procedure I would consider using a different tatoo parlor over antibiotics.

There is no sound information if antibiotics are indicated for those who will have a tattoo, or even dental work for that matter. Some tattoo artists even practice good asepsis, or they should.

No one is likely to have a scientific answer to this, so we are left with balancing risks and benefits to the best of our ability.


Dental work--sometimes( but not always bloodless) work in a bacteria laden field. There is no clear consensus here, some recommend, some don't recommend antibiotics.

Tattoo--cleaner area (skin) with many fewer bacteria, but clearly invasive (bleeding). I would consider the risks to be similar.  


The risk of a single dose of antibiotics is rather small. The benefit of avoiding infection or capsular contracture sounds large, but the number of problems prevented may be small enough that the risk may be greater than the benefit, and there lies the absence of consensus among surgeons.

Do check with your own surgeon, who will have to decide to write the prescription!

Thank you for your question, best wishes.

There is no scientific study that I am aware of regarding the incidence of bacteremia associated with people getting tattoos; I do not think that there is an indication for taking antibiotics prior to getting a tattoo done.

Best wishes.