Contact effects in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) sensors are here investigated specifically respect to the gate field-induced sensitivity enhancement of more than three orders of magnitude seen in a DH alpha 6T OTFT sensor exposed to 1-butanol vapors. This study shows that such a sensitivity enhancement effect is largely ascribable to changes occurring to the transistor channel resistance. Effects, such as the changes in contact resistance, are seen to influence the low gate voltage regime where the sensitivity is much lower. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.