ABSTRACT
Contact allergic dermatitis remains a significant public health problem. Its diagnosis and prevention is complicated by the difficulty of identifying allergens responsible for a patient’s condition (i.e., those that have actually caused the allergic contact dermatitis). This paper attempts to provide criteria that can be used as an operational definition of causative allergens. Six fragrance allergens exemplify the application of these criteria. Each is discussed in a separate paper (1-6).
