Fig. 4

Changes in lesion size of durable response correlated with EV PD-L1 dynamics in patients undergoing ICIs. (A) As observed in the correlation matrix, larger increases in the tumor lesion were observed in patients with increased EV PD-L1 (p = 0.036) (Mann–Whitney U test) but were independent of the levels of tissue PD-L1 (p = 0.330) (Kruskal–Wallis test). No association was found between the tissue PD-L1 TPS and the tumor response (p = 0.561) (Chi-square test). (B) Increase in EV PD-L1 identified non-responders (p = 0.009), however, neither high tissue PD-L1 TPS > 50% (p = 0.192) or TPS > 1% (p = 0.370) were associated with durable response (Chi-square tests)