Fig. 4

Clinical analyses of circulating CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and controls. a The proportion of circulating CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and healthy volunteers. b CD8⁺CD28⁻ T-cell proportion in different age stratifications. c The pretreatment proportion of circulating CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma was not correlated with the clinical stage of disease. d The CD8⁺CD28⁻ percentage in CD8 T cells with the plasma EBV DNA concentration. e Radiotherapy further increased the proportion of CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells in peripheral blood, and the increase lasted 4 months after treatment. f CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells are insensitive to the cell death induced by radiotherapy. At the end of radiotherapy, the absolute count of CD8⁺CD28⁺ T cells in peripheral blood decreased much more than that of CD8⁺CD28⁻ T cells. *: P < 0.05; **: P < 0.01; ***: P < 0.001; ****: P < 0.0001