Fig. 6: High immune-intratumoural heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with poor patient clinical outcome. | Nature Communications

Fig. 6: High immune-intratumoural heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with poor patient clinical outcome.

From: Intratumoural immune heterogeneity as a hallmark of tumour evolution and progression in hepatocellular carcinoma

Fig. 6

a Immune-ITH in tumours: <5 cm vs. ≥5 cm (size based on Milan criteria); low (F0-F1) vs. high (F2–F4) fibrosis stage (METAVIR scoring system), without or with presence of microvascular invasion (MVI) and early (stage I and II) vs. late (Stage III) stage (TNM version 8). Data were shown by box plots from 28 patients. The whiskers represent minimum and maximum values, the band inside the box is the median and box edges show the first and third quartiles. *P < 0.05 by two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test. b Heatmaps showing immune-ITH, tumour size (cm), microvascular invasion (yes as present; no as absent) and Stage (TNM version 8) from 28 patients. c Kaplan–Meier curves for recurrence-free survival (RFS) profiles of 28 HCC patients with low or high immune-ITH tumours. d Multivariate analysis of clinical and biological variables using Cox proportional hazards regression models (n = 28). e Kaplan–Meier curves for RFS profiles of patients with tumours from early stages (n = 20) or without MVI (n = 16) segregated by low or high immune-ITH tumours. f Kaplan–Meier curves for overall survival (OS) profiles of Japanese (n = 203) and TCGA cohorts (n = 315) segregated DEGs associated with immune-ITH. Kaplan–Meier graphs showing immune-ITH low (green) or high (red). c, e, f Kaplan–Meier graphs showing immune-ITH low (green) or high (red); Hazard ratio (HR) and log-rank test two-tailed P-values as indicated. g A graphical summary of tumour-immune co-evolution model with distinct tumour escape strategies.

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