Fig. 4.

Analysis of vTMAs from 20 cases. From 20 selected cases (pN0 (n = 9), pN1 (n = 5), pN2 (n = 6)) one pan-cytokeratin-stained slide was digitalized and disassembled into virtual, overlapping vTMA cores (n = 290 ± 152). a No significant correlation was detected between the resulting budding score and the nodal status and b the median number of tumor buds within the 10 hottest spots and the nodal status for the complete ROI border. c, d Significant positive correlation between the nodal status and the absolute number of significant budding hotspots and the normalized number of significant budding hotspots. The latter is done to compensate for a trend toward higher tumor areas on the WSI for pN1 and pN2 cases