ESR1 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The HR of the risk score and 95% CI were 1.190 and 1.122–1.262 (p < 0.001) in univariate Cox regression analysis (Fig. 3a) and 1.162 and 1.074–1.258 (p < 0.001) in multivariate Cox regression analysis (Fig. 3b), respectively, indicating that the risk model of the 12 BCSC-related lncRNAs was the most significant prognostic factor for breast cancer, independent of clinicopathological parameters such as age, ER expression, PR expression, HER2 expression, molecular subtypes, TNM stage, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis.