Figure 6.

In vivo therapeutic efficacy of intratumoral IL-15 injection combined with CD44-targeted NIR-PIT in a Pan02-luc tumor mouse model, which is known not to be non-immunogenic. A, Treatment schedule. Mice with Pan02-luc tumors reaching approximately 50–150 mm³ in volume were treated with CD44-targeted NIR-PIT, intratumoral IL-15 injection, or their combination. B, Representative fluorescent imaging at 700 nm before and after NIR-PIT. A.U., arbitrary units. C, Tumor growth curves showing effectiveness of combination therapy (n = 10; mean ± SEM; repeated measures two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test); **, p < 0.01; ****, p < 0.0001. D, Survival curves showing prolonged surviving in mice receiving combination therapy although no CRs were achieved in this group (n = 10, log–rank test with Bonferroni correction); **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001; ****, p < 0.0001; CR, complete response.