From 1983 through 1989, 141 untreated patients with Hodgkin's disease underwent CT of the abdomen. They subsequently underwent staging laparotomy plus splenectomy and multiple biopsies of liver and lymph nodes, at the Institute of Radiology and Hematology, University "La Sapienza", Rome. CT results were compared with surgical findings to evaluate CT sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy. The cases from this series were divided into two groups depending on the characteristics of the CT scanners employed. From 1983 to 1985, 78 patients were examined with 2nd-generation CT units; from 1986 to 1989, 63 patients underwent CT performed with 3rd-generation scanners. The results from the two groups were analyzed according to these parameters. A total number of 622 biopsies were performed, of spleen, liver, and lymph nodes. CT sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy were: 22.9% (group I) vs 43.7% (group II), 83.1% vs 92%, and 68.4% vs 81.2% for lymph nodes; 28.1% vs 36.3%, 93.5% vs 98%, and 66.7% vs 87.3% for the spleen, and 12.5% vs 42.8%, 97.1% vs 98.2%, and 88.5% vs 92.1% for the liver. Our results demonstrate an obvious increase in reliability with newer units, even though a high percentage of false-negatives were still observed in our series, which caused understaging in 19.4% of cases vs 24.4% in group I.