The Department of Dermatology at Ullevål Hospital wanted to reveal any diagnostical problems with skin biopsies taken from patients in the Out-patient Clinic. 200 non-tumour skin biopsies from 200 patients were studied retrospectively (100 biopsies from 1986 and 100 from 1995/96). The tentative diagnosis coincided with the pathological anatomical diagnosis in 57.5%(n = 115) of the cases. Of the 200 patients, 22%(n = 44) had still not been given a specific diagnosis after biopsy. This study indicates that skin biopsy is of diagnostical help, but that closer cooperation between the pathologist and the clinician is probably necessary in order to increase the proportion of specific dermatological diagnoses.