Contact allergy is a possible adverse effect of natural products. Baseline series supplemented with the commonest botanical allergens may be adequate for detecting most of the cases of contact allergy to natural topical products.

Contact dermatitis in pediatric population is a common but (previously) under recognized disease. It is usually divided into the allergic and the irritant forms. The diagnosis is usually obtained with the patch test technique after conducting a thorough medical history and careful physical examination but patch testing in infants may be particularly difficult, and false-positive reactions may occur. This study also provides an overview of the most common allergens in pediatric population and discusses various therapeutic modalities.

The activities of ornithine decarboxylase and of S-adenosyl-L-methionine decarboxylase in human normal epidermis, in basal cell epitheliomas, and in squamous cell carcinomas of human skin have been compared. All 3 types of tissues have characteristic levels of each of these enzymes. The normal epidermis had the lowest levels of both ornithine decarboxylase and S-adenosyl-L-methionine decarboxylase activities. The levels of the polyamine biosynthetic decarboxylases in basal cell epitheliomas were significantly higher than those of normal epidermis, but at the same time significantly lower than those present in squamous cell carcinomas. These results support the conclusion that in epithelial malignant tumors of human skin the extent of the increase in the activities of polyamine biosynthetic decarboxylases is well correlated with the neoplasm's growth rate, which is faster in the squamous cell carcinomas than in the basal cell epitheliomas.