Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells and PD-L1 as Prognostic Biomarkers in Primary Esophageal Small Cell Carcinoma

Figure 1

The expression of PD-L1 in the stroma correlates with tumor-infiltrating immune cells in PESCC. (a) Representative immunohistochemistry (IHC) images showing different expression patterns of PD-L1 in PESCC tissues. Scale bar, 100 μm. S: stroma; T: tumor. (b) Distribution of different expression patterns of PD-L1 are plotted in the pie chart. (c) The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis of overall survival (OS) in a cohort of 77 PESCC patients according to positive (red line, ) and negative (blue line, ) PD-L1 expression. (d) Representative IHC images showing PD-L1, CD4, CD8, and CD163 expression in the stroma using consecutive sections of PD-L1-positive and PD-L1-negative specimens. Scale bar, 100 μm. S: stroma; T: tumor. (e) The presence of PD-L1 is positively associated with the number of CD4⁺ TILs, CD8⁺ TILs, and CD163⁺ TAMs ( and by the Wilcoxon test).

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