The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the necessity of needle biopsy in staging laparotomy. Between 1988 and 1998, 31 patients diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease underwent staging laparotomy. All patients had lymph node sampling from perihilar, coeliac, periaortic and iliac regions, splenectomy, wedge biopsy of the liver as well as tru-cut needle biopsies from both liver lobes. Two patients (6.5%) had hepatic involvement of the liver detected by both wedge and needle biopsies. In the remaining patients, all biopsies of the liver obtained by either method were negative. These findings strongly suggest that wedge biopsy of the liver provides sufficient information for the diagnosis and there is no need for tru-cut biopsy which has its own complications.