To validate the results obtained from the study cohort, we obtained NGS data of 2727 NSCLC patients from cBioPortal database and grouped them as an external cohort, which comprised 48 patients with pathogenic or likely pathogenic ATM/ATR mutations (Additional file 1: Table S3) and 2679 patients without any ATM/ATR variations (Additional file 1: Fig S1). Here, ATR is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.