Figure 2. Longitudinal monitoring of the spheroids area as a function of the treatment condition.

For each time point and culture type, four representative images are presented corresponding to a control (NT), 2.5J/cm² PDT (PDT), 20 Gy RT and a combination of 2.5J/cm² PDT + 20Gy RT (PDT+20Gy) (Scale bar: 400μm). Results are presented for MIA PaCa-2/pCAF (A, B and C), Capan2/pCAF (D, E and F) and for AsPC-1/pCAF (G, H and I) and were assessed on day 3 (A, D, G), day 5 (B, E, H) and day 12 (C, F, I). For each condition, a scatter plot represents the area of each individual spheroids normalized on the average area of the untreated spheroids together with the median value of each treatment group. A strong decrease in the spheroid area is reported for the MIA PaCa-2/pCAF cultures for each treatment. The effect gets stronger at day 12, i.e. 9 days post treatment. For this time point, a mild beneficial effect is reported when combining 20Gy RT with PDT. For both Capan2/pCAF and AsPC-1/pCAF cultures the size variations are slighter regardless of the treatment and the day of measurement.