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Article History

Received: 19 September 2025

Accepted: 6 January 2026

First Online: 13 January 2026

Declarations

:

: All animal experiments were approved by the competent regional authority (LAVE, Landesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Ernährung Nordrhein Westfalen; approval no. 81-02.04.2021.A328) and conducted in accordance with the German Animal Welfact Act and the EU Directive 2010/63 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, as well as institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. Tumor burden and general condition were monitored using a predefined physiological/welfare scoring system, and all experiments were carried out in line with the 3R principles and predefined humane endpoints. The humane endpoint was defined a priori as a cumulative score > 9, any single category score of 3, cumulative burden > 9 over time, or the presence of ≥ 4 symptoms persisting for more than 2 consecutive days, triggering immediate euthanasia. No animal reached the predefined humane endpoint, and all recorded scores remained ≤ 6 throughout the study. To use fully anonymized human formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded blocks from the archive of the Institute of Pathology at the University Hospital Duesseldorf ethic approval was granted under the reference number of 2170/2022.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.