Fig. 1

Study design. Patients with cT3-4N0M0 and cT1-4N1-2M0 received long-course radiotherapy (50 Gy/25 f, 2 Gy/f, 5 days/week) and three 21-day cycles capecitabine (850–1000 mg/m2, bid, po, day1–14) plus three 21-day cycles tislelizumab (200 mg, iv.gtt, day8), followed by surgery 6–8 weeks after the end of radiotherapy. The primary efficacy endpoint was the pathological complete response (pCR) rate. Blood and tumor samples were collected before and after neoadjuvant for multiplex immunofluorescence and circulating tumor cells analysis