Fig. 4

Effects of surgery on NK cell marker expression in placebo-and TXA-treated patients. The effects of surgery on the expression of immune-stimulating and immunosuppressive surface markers were assessed on NK cells (A-G) and B cells (H) in placebo-treated and TXA-treated patients by flowcytometry. For NK cells, no change was detected at any of the postoperative time points for the expression of PD-1 (A), CD95 (B), LAP (C) and CCR4 (D). However, NK cells displayed a reduction of CCR7 at EOS (E), and an increase of TNFR2 on POD-3 (F). The increase in TNFR2 was also present in the TXA group, which moreover displayed an increase compared to placebo at the preOP time point already (F). B cells showed a significant reduction of HLA-DR expression postoperatively in both, placebo- and TXA-treated patients (H). Data are expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean. Placebo: n = 4, TXA n = 15. *p = 0.05, **p = 0.01, ***p = 0.001, ****p = 0.0001, comparisons with preOP, repeated measures one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s correction test for multiple comparisons. preOP: pre-operative, EOS: end of surgery, POD-1: post-operative day 1, POD-3: post-operative day 3, MFI: mean fluorescence intensity