In the current study, we showed that, as compared to normal donors, the expressions of several co-inhibitory receptors (or checkpoints), including PD-1, T cell immunoglobulin mucin-3 (TIM-3), T cell Ig and ITIM domain (TIGIT) and CD160, were significantly increased in a fraction of peripheral T cells of esophageal cancer patients. Here, HAVCR2 is linked to esophageal cancer.