Fig. 5: The association of changes in the composition of the infiltrating immune cells with prognosis and treatment efficacy.

A Correlation heatmap of differentially expressed proteins and immune cells. Spearman correlation test was conducted, with statistical significance determined by the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure. B Representative images of multiplex immunofluorescence from responders and non-responders. The staining of different protein markers is indicated by different colors. C Comparison of indicated immune cells abundance in total region of responders (n = 7) and non-responders (n = 20). Differences between groups were evaluated using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. D Kaplan–Meier plots of PFS stratified by above or below the median percentage for total CD68⁺PD-L1⁺PD-1⁺ cells. E Kaplan–Meier plots stratified by total CD68⁺PD-L1⁺PD-1⁺ for OS. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; NS not significant; R responders; NR non-responders; PFS Progression-Free Survival; OS Overall Survival. All tests were two-sided for statistical evaluation. No adjustments for multiple comparisons were made. Each box plot shows the median as the central line, with the box boundaries representing the first and third quartiles (25th and 75th percentiles), and the whiskers indicating the range from minimum to maximum values. Source data and exact p values are provided as a Source Data file.