Thin needle aspiration biopsies obtained from the pancreas during laparotomy were taken on 56 patients over the past 6 yr. An 18- to 22-gauge spinal needle attached to a disposable syringe was employed. The specimens were fixed immediately and stained according to the method of Papanicolaou. Of the 36 carcinomas, the accuracy was 94%. There were no false positives in the 20 benign lesions. The safety, ease of interpretation and high accuracy of this method make this an extremely useful procedure.