IBIS (Tyrer-Cuzick) vs Evagene: the official breast-cancer risk evaluator vs a research and education pedigree platform

Short version. These are not competitors; they answer different questions. The IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator is the official, validated implementation of the Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick algorithm, maintained by the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London. If you need a definitive or clinical breast-cancer risk number, it is the reference standard, and Evagene does not replace it. Evagene is an academic, research, and educational pedigree modelling platform whose built-in Tyrer-Cuzick is an IBIS-style approximation of the published Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick 2004 algorithm — not the official IBIS binary — provided so learners and researchers can explore how the model behaves on the same pedigree as nineteen other published models. Evagene actively routes you out to the official IBIS evaluator (and to CanRisk for BOADICEA) for definitive numbers. Use the right tool for the question.

This article is an honest, fact-by-fact comparison. Where the official IBIS tool is stronger — and on the rows that matter most for clinical breast-cancer risk, it is — we say so plainly. All claims about the IBIS evaluator are drawn from its public documentation at ems-trials.org/riskevaluator and the licensing information from Queen Mary University of London as of June 2026; if anything has since changed, those pages supersede this article.

A note on positioning before the comparison

The single most important thing to understand on this page: Evagene's Tyrer-Cuzick is an IBIS-style approximation of the published Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick 2004 algorithm, not the official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator binary. The full coefficients of the official IBIS model are not publicly released, so any third-party reimplementation is an approximation. Evagene labels it as such everywhere it appears, and its outputs are illustrative — for teaching and exploratory research — never clinical recommendations. Evagene is not a medical device, is not clinical decision support, and is not a diagnostic or screening tool.

Because of that, the off-platform routing described below is a deliberate design choice, not a gap. When you need a number you can stand behind clinically, Evagene points you to the validated tools rather than asking you to trust an approximation. That is the correct relationship between an educational platform and an authoritative one.

How the two tools position themselves

The official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator is single-purpose and authoritative. It is the reference implementation of the Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick algorithm, developed and maintained by the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London under Professor Jack Cuzick, and licensed via Cancer Research Horizons. The current version, v8 (September 2017), adds a mammographic breast-density input and a polygenic SNP component, and computes 10-year and lifetime breast-cancer risk alongside BRCA carrier probability. For non-commercial research it is distributed as source code or a command-line / desktop batch application; it has no pedigree-drawing GUI in the research binary. Web and clinical access is delivered by licensed vendors such as Ikonopedia and MagView, which deliver the same QMUL algorithm rather than a different model of their own. Its strength is depth on one question, and the authority that comes from being the validated reference for that question.

Evagene is broad rather than single-purpose. It is a pedigree drawing, management, and modelling platform for academic, research, and educational use. The pedigree is the central artefact, and around it Evagene runs twenty published risk models in total — including its Tyrer-Cuzick IBIS-style approximation — so a learner or researcher can construct one family history and see how many different models read it. It adds a 230+ disease catalogue, 1,900+ help guides, a Related Concepts educational correlation graph (1,100+ associations), a guided Family History Questionnaire, AI-assisted draft summaries for educational and research review (using your own LLM key), an MCP server (15 tools), the Evagene Pedigree Builder Custom GPT, a REST API, webhooks, an embeddable viewer, and GEDCOM / 23andMe / CanRisk interoperability. Its strength is breadth, teaching, and exploration on a shared pedigree — and routing out to validated tools when a definitive number is required.

The headline difference is one of intent. The official IBIS evaluator is the validated clinical reference for one calculation. Evagene is a research and education environment in which that calculation is one illustrative model among twenty, and where the honest move, when stakes are clinical, is to send you to the authoritative tool.

Feature-by-feature comparison

The matrix below summarises what each tool publishes on its public pages and documentation. A tick means the capability is publicly advertised or documented; a dash means it is not publicly listed (which does not necessarily mean it is absent). Where nuance matters, we add a note. Read the matrix with the angle in mind: the official IBIS tool wins the rows that define clinical breast-cancer risk, and Evagene wins the rows that define a broad research and education pedigree platform.

Matrix compiled from publicly available documentation and licensing pages as of June 2026. "—" indicates the capability is not publicly advertised and does not necessarily mean it is absent. Evagene's Tyrer-Cuzick is an IBIS-style approximation of the published Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick 2004 algorithm, not the official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator binary; its outputs are illustrative and for educational / research purposes only.

The Tyrer-Cuzick calculation itself

This is the row that matters most, so we are explicit about it. The official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator is the validated, authoritative Tyrer-Cuzick implementation. Its v8 model incorporates classical risk factors, family history, mammographic breast density, and a polygenic SNP component, and it is the version cited and relied upon in clinical and research practice. If your question is "what is this person's 10-year and lifetime breast-cancer risk, and their BRCA carrier probability, as computed by Tyrer-Cuzick," the official IBIS evaluator is the tool to use.

Evagene's Tyrer-Cuzick is, again, an IBIS-style approximation of the published Tyrer/Duffy/Cuzick 2004 algorithm, not the official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator binary. The official model's full coefficients are not public, so Evagene's implementation follows the published method rather than reproducing the binary, and it does not incorporate the v8 mammographic-density or SNP inputs. It exists for teaching and exploration — to let a student or researcher see how a Tyrer-Cuzick-style calculation responds to a pedigree alongside Claus 1994, Gail 1989, BRCAPRO, and the rest — and its outputs are illustrative, not clinical. Where you need the definitive number, Evagene's own guidance is to use the official IBIS evaluator. We say this every time the model is mentioned because the distinction is the whole point.

Breadth: twenty models on one pedigree

Where Evagene adds value is not in out-computing the official tool on its own model — it cannot, and does not claim to — but in breadth for teaching and exploration. Evagene runs twenty published risk models on a single pedigree: the Tyrer-Cuzick IBIS-style approximation; the BayesMendel suite (BRCAPRO, MMRpro, and PancPRO); Claus 1994; Couch 1997; Frank 2002; Manchester / Evans 2004; NICE familial-breast-cancer criteria; Amsterdam II / Vasen 1999; Bethesda / Umar 2004; Gail 1989; the Mendelian inheritance calculators (autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, X-linked, mitochondrial, digenic, imprinting); and liability-threshold multifactorial / polygenic / oligogenic models. See the Mendelian inheritance calculator guide for the underlying approach.

For an educator, that breadth is the feature: one family history, many lenses, side by side, with the differences between models becoming a teaching point in themselves. The official IBIS evaluator is deliberately not this — it is a focused, validated instrument for one question, and that focus is exactly why it is the clinical reference.

Routing out: CanRisk / BOADICEA and the official IBIS tool

Evagene is built to hand off to authoritative tools. It exports a ##CanRisk 2.0 pedigree file that you upload at canrisk.org to run BOADICEA. BOADICEA is not bundled with Evagene; it is licensed by the University of Cambridge, and the CanRisk site is its authoritative front end. The same structured family history you build in Evagene also gives you the inputs to enter into the official IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator for a validated Tyrer-Cuzick number. In other words, Evagene is the place you draw and document the pedigree; the validated tools are where you compute the clinical figures.

This handoff is intentional and is positive evidence of Evagene's research-and-education intent. A tool that wanted to be treated as a clinical calculator would keep you inside it; Evagene does the opposite, pointing you to the authoritative implementations whenever the stakes are clinical. The architectural separation — illustrative model in-platform, validated computation off-platform — is the design, not a limitation.

Platform layer: AI, API, MCP, catalogue

Around the pedigree, Evagene adds surfaces the official IBIS tool does not document: a 230+ disease catalogue and 1,900+ help guides for reference; a Related Concepts educational correlation graph (1,100+ curated associations) for exploring how findings relate; a guided Family History Questionnaire; AI-assisted draft summaries for educational and research review that use your own LLM key (BYOK); an MCP server exposing 15 tools to compatible AI agents; the Evagene Pedigree Builder Custom GPT; a scoped REST API; webhooks; and an embeddable viewer. These make Evagene useful as a teaching and research environment and let pedigree data flow into other tooling. None of this is part of the official IBIS evaluator, which is, by design, a focused risk calculator rather than a platform — and that is the right shape for an authoritative clinical reference.

When to choose the official IBIS (Tyrer-Cuzick) evaluator

• You need a definitive or clinical breast-cancer risk number computed by the validated Tyrer-Cuzick algorithm. This is the reference standard; use it.
• You want the v8 model's mammographic breast-density and polygenic SNP inputs, and 10-year / lifetime risk plus BRCA carrier probability.
• You are doing non-commercial research that requires the authoritative QMUL implementation, as source code or a command-line / desktop batch run.
• You access Tyrer-Cuzick through a licensed clinical vendor (for example Ikonopedia or MagView) that delivers the QMUL algorithm in your workflow.
• The stakes are clinical and you need a number you can stand behind. Evagene does not replace the official IBIS evaluator for this.

When to choose Evagene

• You are teaching, learning, or exploring, and you want to see how a Tyrer-Cuzick-style calculation behaves on the same pedigree as nineteen other published models — with every output understood as illustrative, not clinical.
• You need to draw, document, and manage the pedigree itself, with standard notation and a guided Family History Questionnaire.
• You want to capture a family history once and then route out to the official IBIS evaluator and to CanRisk / BOADICEA for definitive numbers.
• You want the surrounding research and education tooling: a 230+ disease catalogue, 1,900+ help guides, the Related Concepts correlation graph, AI-assisted draft summaries (BYOK), an MCP server, a Custom GPT, a REST API, webhooks, and GEDCOM / 23andMe / CanRisk interoperability.
• You want to start free today via the Alpha waiting list — remembering that Evagene's Tyrer-Cuzick is an IBIS-style approximation for education, not the official binary.

Frequently asked questions

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