Objective To investigate the prognostic factors of progression free survival (PFS) in patients with breast cancer, and to construct and validate prognosis nomogram model based on clinicopathological features, preoperative cancer indicators and ultrasound features.

Methods Clinicopathological features, preoperative cancer indicators and ultrasound data of 260 breast cancer patients in the Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University from November 2011 to December 2015 after surgical treatment were analyzed retrospectively, and the Cox risk model was used to gradually determine the independent prognostic factors of PFS in breast cancer patients. A prediction model was established and conducted with internal validation.

Results The results of multivariate Cox analysis showed that the largest diameter of tumor, lymph node metastasis, estrogen receptor (ER), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), carbohydrate antigen 153 (CA153) and growth direction were the independent predictors of PFS (P < 0.05). A nomogram model was established based on the above indicators, and the validation results showed that the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for 5-year PFS was 0.844, and the C-index was 0.793 (95%CI, 0.736 to 0.850), and the 3- and 5-year calibration curves of the nomogram was close to the reference line and showed a good consistency.

Conclusion In this study, we construct a prognostic prediction nomogram model that combines the clinicopathological features, preoperative cancer markers and ultrasonographic features to provide a visual survival assessment for breast cancer patients.