A prognostic 10-lncRNA expression signature for predicting the risk of tumour recurrence in breast cancer patients

Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies and a leading cause of cancer death among females. Multiple molecular alterations are observed in breast cancer. LncRNA transcripts were proved to play important roles in the biology of tumorigenesis. In this study, we aimed to identify lncRNA expression signature that can predict breast cancer patient survival. We developed a 10-lncRNA signature-based risk score which was used to separate patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. Patients in the low-risk group had significantly better survival than those in the high-risk group. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that this signature exhibited excellent diagnostic efficiency for 1-, 3- and 5-year disease-relapse events. Moreover, multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that this 10-lncRNA signature was an independent risk factor when adjusting for several clinical signatures such as age, tumour size and lymph node status. The prognostic value of risk scores was validated in the validation set. In addition, a nomogram was established and the calibration plots analysis indicated the good performance and clinical utility of the nomogram. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that this 10-lncRNA signature effectively grouped patients at low and high risk of disease recurrence.