Fig. 3

The presence of TLS could be a good prognostic factor in OSCC tissues. a, b Graphs showing the 5-year survival rates of TLS in 168 OSCC patients using the Kaplan–Meier method and log-rank test. a TLS-positive patients had a higher 5-year OS rate than TLS-negative patients (88.9% vs. 56.1%, P < 0.001). b TLS-positive patients had a higher 5-year RFS rate than TLS-negative patients (88.9% vs. 63.4%, P = 0.002). c, d The outcome of different subtypes of TLS in 45 TLS-positive OSCC patients using the Kaplan–Meier method and log-rank test. There were no significant differences in the 5-year OS and RFS rates between mature TLS and immature TLS in TLS-positive OSCC patients (94.1% vs. 85.7%, P = 0.411 and 88.2% vs. 89.3%, P = 0.896, respectively). e, f TCGA database showed that high TLS signature predicted better survival than low TLS signature in overall survival rate but no significance in relapse-free survival rate in head and neck cancer (P = 0.0081 and 0.63, respectively)