Twenty-five primary retinoblastoma tumours were analysed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction to determine the genomic copy number of the N-MYC gene (2p24) relative to the copy number for REL, B2M, ALB, AF10 and MLL. Twenty-one of these tumours were shown by Comparative Genomic Hybridization to contain variable copy number increases of chromosomal material mapping to 2p. High level amplification (>30-fold) of N-MYC was found in three tumours, none of which showed adverse histological features and all patients are surviving at between 54 and 108 months post enucleation. Furthermore, the three tumours associated with metastasis and adverse patient outcome showed normal N-MYC copy number. Although high level amplification of N-MYC is an unfavourable prognostic indicator in neuroblastoma, these data show no evidence of a correlation between amplification of N-MYC and adverse outcome in retinoblastoma.