Fine needle aspiration biopsy was used as an investigational procedure in the evaluation of 71 eyes harboring a suspected intraocular malignancy between January 8, 1981, and January 21, 1983. Twenty-seven of these 71 biopsies were performed prior to any treatment as a diagnostic procedure and the others were performed following enucleation or tumor excision to provide specimens for cytologic-histologic correlation. The histologic findings confirmed the cytologic diagnosis of malignancy or benignancy in 94.3% of the 53 cases in which a corresponding tissue specimen was available for histologic evaluation. None of the eight eyes with a cytologically confirmed diagnosis of malignancy that were managed conservatively following the biopsy has experienced visual loss attributable to the biopsy. There have been no instances of documented needle tract seeding by tumor cells or orbital tumor recurrence to date in the 27 cases in which diagnostic fine needle aspiration biopsy had been performed prior to treatment.