CD68 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The proportion of CD68+ PD-L1+ cells within CD68+ macrophages was higher in peri-tumor (P < 0.0001) (Fig. 4b).The proportion of CD68+ PD-L1+ within CD68+ macrophages correlated with aggressive the clinicopathological factors such as high level of CA19-9 (P = 0.027), higher Child-Pugh stage (P = 0.017), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.027), microscopic vascular invasion (P = 0.029), and advanced TNM stage (P = 0.036) (Supplementary Table 3).