Fig. 2: MCSP⁺ DCCs impose high risk of progression.

a–d, Kaplan–Meier curves of PFS, MSS and OS of patients stratified according to IC, MT assay or histopathology results. a, Patients with LNs without MCSP cells (MCSP⁻, n = 99), positive for MCSP⁺MT⁻ cells (n = 238) or positive for MCSP⁺MT⁺ cells (n = 98). b, Patients with MCSP⁻gp100⁺ LNs (n = 10) or MCSP⁺MT⁺gp100⁻ LNs (n = 23) (b). c, Patients with gp100⁺ cells (n = 142) stratified according to whether MCSP⁺ DCCs (gp100⁺MCSP⁺MT⁺, n = 63) were codetected in the SLN (gp100⁺MCSP⁻ or MCSP⁺MT⁻, n = 79). d, Patients with histopathology-negative SLNs (N0, n = 296) stratified according to whether IC was negative for MCSP⁺MT⁺ and gp100⁺ DCCs (N0 and IC-negative, n = 196), positive for gp100⁺ DCCs only (N0 and gp100⁺MCSP⁻ or MCSP⁺MT⁻, n = 63) or positive for MCSP⁺MT⁺ DCCs with or without codetection of gp100⁺ DCCs (N0, MCSP⁺MT⁺ and gp100⁺ or gp100⁻, n = 37). e–g, Multivariable Cox regression analysis for PFS (e), MSS (f) and OS (g) comprising the most informative, backward selected features (n = 380). Patients without MCSP⁺MT⁺ cells, female patients and patients without ulceration were used as the reference for defining the hazard ratio (HR). Parameters marked with an asterisk (*) were analyzed as continuous variables, that is, the increase in age (in year), N category (N status) and thickness (in mm). The dots represent the HRs and the whiskers indicate the 95% confidence interval (CI). AIC, Akaike information criterion. P values in a–d were determined using a log-rank test. P values in e,f were determined using a Wald test. All statistical tests were two-sided. The baseline characteristics of patients are listed in Table 1.

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