Fig. 7: Immune checkpoint expression stratified by PCDI score.

Violin plots depicting the expression levels of key immune checkpoint genes (CD274, CTLA4, HAVCR2, TIGIT, LAG3, PDCD1, PDCD1LG2, and SIGLEC15) between PCDI-High (red) and PCDI-Low (blue) groups. Higher expression of all checkpoints was observed in the PCDI-High group, indicating a potentially immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Significance levels are denoted as follows: p < 0.001. It also correlated the PCDI score with clinical variables. PCDI-high tumors were more frequently late-stage: patients with advanced stage (IV/III) disease had notably higher PCDI scores than those with the stage I/II. Patients who had died of disease had higher PCDI scores than those alive at last follow-up.