Figure 4.

Exploratory biomarker analysis. Kaplan-Meier estimates of PFS stratified by baseline levels of CD8⁺CD28⁺ T cells (median, 12.0; A) and CD3⁺ T cells (median, 74.5; B) in peripheral blood. (C) Genetic alteration spectrum in baseline tumor tissue samples. Frequency distribution of common genetic alterations between CR/MPR and minorPR/SD or between PD/death and non-PD patients. MPR presented here was defined as tumor shrinkage of ≥70% to <100%; minorPR presented here was defined as tumor shrinkage of ≥30% to <70%. (D) Box plots showing a significant difference in the change of peripheral blood lymphocytes. Between-group comparisons were performed using the false discovery rate (FDR) correction, and biomarkers with FDR q-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant; however, these analyses were still deemed hypothesis-generating only due to the exploratory design and small sample size of this study. 1st indicated peripheral blood lymphocytes at baseline; 3rd indicated peripheral blood lymphocytes after immunotherapy maintenance. cCRT, concurrent chemoradiotherapy; CPS, combined positive score; CR/MPR, complete response/major partial response; MinorPR/SD, minor partial response/stable disease; mo, month; NK, natural killer; NR, not reached; PD, progressive disease; PD-L1, programmed death ligand 1; PFS, progression-free survival; TMB, tumor mutational burden; TNM, tumor/node/metastasis.