Fig. 4.

Interleukin (IL)-35 correlates with CD68⁺ cells in the control region of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). a Representative images of immunohistochemistry (IHC) for CD68 (brown) on paraffin-embedded lung tissue from a control patient without lung carcinoma (HC) and the control (CTR) and tumoural (TU) region of a patient who suffered from SCC (×12 and ×60 magnification). b Quantification of CD68⁺ cells per area unit upon IHC staining of paraffin-embedded tissue arrays from the lung of HC patients (HC = 10) as well as from the CTR and the TU region of the lung of patients with adenocarcinoma (ADC) (ADC_CTR = 18, ADC_TU = 12) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (SCC_CTR = 14, SCC_TU = 10). c Representative images of IHC for IL-35 (brown) on paraffin-embedded lung tissue from a HC patient and the CTR and TU region of a patient who suffered from SCC (×12 and ×60 magnification). d–f Correlation between IL-35⁺ and CD68⁺ cells per area unit detected via IHC in the CTR lung tissue of ADC (d, ADC_CTR = 5) and SCC (e, SCC_CTR = 6) subtypes collectively grouped as NSCLC (f, NSCLC_CTR = 11) lung cancer. g–i Correlation between IL-35⁺ and CD68⁺ cells per area unit detected via IHC in the TU lung tissue of ADC (g, ADC_TU = 4) and SCC (h, SCC_TU = 5) subtypes collectively grouped as NSCLC (i, NSCLC_TU = 9) lung cancer. j Comparative depiction of IL-35⁺ and CD68⁺ cells per area unit of paraffin-embedded lung tissue of HC control patients without lung cancer (HC_{IL-35+ cells} = 10; HC_{CD68+ cells} = 10) and the tumour-free control region of NSCLC patients (CTR_{IL-35+ cells} = 13; CTR_{CD68+ cells} = 33) determined via IHC. Data are presented as mean ± SEM and significance levels are indicated as follows: *p < 0.05