Hello My name is Laura, last week my husband noticed some dark patches on the inside of his right cheek, he is 44 and has chewed for many years. All last week he was scared to death that it was cancer, on friday he seen an ENT, who said he thought it was tattooing caused from his fillings. But we asked for a biopsy anyway, which will be preformed tomorrow.
Has anyone ever heard of Tattooing from fillings in your teeth???? I am desperate for an answer, I tried to research this on the internet and came up with nothing....I am also very scared !!!

Thanks Laura

Hi Laura,
I don't know anything about "filling tattooing" but the relationship between tobacco and oral cancer is well understood. He's just playing Russion roulette with it. I hope that this serves as a wake up call to quit a potentially deadly habit, if nothing else.

Yes Gary, as soon as he noticed the black patches on his cheek, he stopped. It scared the hell out of him !!! I think the tattooing thing is B/S. !

Amalgam tattoos are very common, as a small particulate of the silver filling material becomes embedded in the soft tissues of the mouth and gradually they discolor a sport surrounding the metal particle. This can happen at the time of placement of the filling, appearing later in life, or can come as a filling begins to break down as it ages. I assure you they are not BS. Things that look like amalgam tattoos are usually oral melanomas, a very deadly form of oral cancer but thankfully very rare. (You can read more about these on the facts page.) While the biopsy will give you a definitive answer what you wish to be hoping for right now is an amalgam tattoo. The causes of oral melanomas, the only oral cancer that looks generally like an amalgam tattoo are relatively unknown. They are not directly related to tobacco use such as the squamous cell carcinomas that the bulk of the posters here on the boards have had. While an unlikely source of a melanoma, I agree with Gary that this should be a wake up call to a dangerous lifestyle choice.