The authors draw attention to the increased incidence of contact allergy. They analyze the sensitization process and algorithms when resolving the diagnosis of contact allergy (basic case-his- tory, clinical manifestations, patch tests, verified case-history, interpretation and clinical relevance of tests). During interpretation it is important to respect the causes of false positive and false negative reactions. The most important part of the work is analysis of relevance of tests. This implies anamnestic relevance (contact with the allergen in the past) or actual relevance (simple correlation, the allergen is a derivative of the assessed substance, the allergen is detected only by microanalytic evidence or comprehensive allergological analysis). Special attention is paid to a routine or standard series of contact allergens which is the only diagnostic method supplementing the allergologial case-history or detection of so-called latent allergens. Attention is drawn to shortcomings of existing routine series. The dermatoallergologist should focus his work in particular on individual, specially contact allergens, and this calls for a high quality case-history.

        Key words: contact allergy - sensitiziation process - algorithms in the diagnosis of contact allergy