Fig. 2: Summary of multiplex immunofluorescent staining (IF) performed on the parallel FFPE tumour biopsies (n = 29).

a Boxplot of CD8-positive, PD-L1-positive and FOXP3-positive cells per mm2 tumour tissue according to TMB high or low. No significant differences were found in median cell count between TMB high and low. Ns not significant, TMB tumour mutational burden. b Boxplot of CD68/PD-L1 double-positive and -negative tumours plotted against CD8/PD-L1 double-positive cell count. The CD8/PD-L1 double-positive cell count was significantly higher in the CD68/PD-L1 double-positive sample than in the negative sample (p = 0.000).***p < 0.001. c Illustrative example of the multiplex immunofluorescent staining of one patient and corresponding cell counts.