Fig. 2

Optimal threshold of No. of PLN count for OS as determined by the X-tile model. a: X-tile plots based on No. of PLN. b: Optimal cut-off point is shown in the blue (No. of PLN = 0), gray (1 ≤ No. of PLN ≤ 3) and violet panel(No. of PLN ≥ 4) for each PLN cutoff respectively. c: specific information about patients with stage nN, blue: 6383 patients (66.91%) with nN0; gray:2128 patients (22.31%) with nN1–3; violet panel: 1028 patients (10.78%) with nN4–61; yellow: a total of 9539 patients