The programmedcell death (PCD) pathway plays an important role in restricting cancer cell survival and proliferation. However, limited studies have investigated the association between genetic variants in the 3'-untranslated region of the PCD pathway genes and breast cancer outcomes. In this study, we genotyped 28 potentially functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)in 23 PCD pathwaygenesin 1,177patients withearly-stagebreast cancer(EBC)from a Han Chinese population.The median follow-up period was 174 months. Among all the candidateSNPs, fourindependent SNPs (rs4900321 and rs7150025 in ATG2B, rs6753785 in BCL2L11, and rs2213181 in c-Kit) were associated with invasive disease-free survival (iDFS), distant disease-free survival (DDFS), breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS)and overall survival (OS), respectively. Further combined genotypes of these four SNPs revealed that the survival decreasedas the number of unfavorable genotypes increased(Ptrend= 1.0 × 10-6, 8.5 × 10-8, 3.6 × 10-4, and 1.3 × 10-4for iDFS, DDFS, BCSS, and OS, respectively). Receiver operating characteristiccurve analysis demonstrated that incorporating unfavorable genotypes and clinicopathological variables improved the ability to predict EBC survival (P= 0.006, 0.004, 0.029, and 0.019 for iDFS, DDFS, BCSS, and OS, respectively).Additionally, rs6753785 and rs2213181 were associated with BCL2L11and c-KitmRNA expression, respectively. Our results suggest that these four SNPs may act as novel biomarkers for EBC survival, possibly by modulating the expression of the corresponding genes.