Fig. 1

Relationship between the number of tumor buds and prognosis in colorectal cancer patients. A Representative AE1/AE3 IHC specimens of CRC cases with high number of tumor budding (TB); yellow arrows indicate isolated CRC cells. Bar, 50 μm. B Representative AE1/AE3 IHC specimens of CRC cases with low number of tumor budding (TB); yellow arrows indicate isolated CRC cells. Bar, 50 μm. C Kaplan‒Meier curves of overall survival (OS) between TB^high and TB^low. The red curves show the TB^high group (n = 39), and the blue curves show the TB^low group (n = 61). OS in the TB^high group was significantly lower than that in the TB^low group (log-rank, P = 0.0240). D Kaplan‒Meier curves of relapse-free survival (RFS) between TB^high and TB^low. The red curves show the TB^high groups (n = 32), and the blue curves show the TB^low groups (n = 54). RFS in the TB^high group was significantly lower than that in the TB^low group (log-rank, P = 0.0411)