CD44 and neoplasm: To analyze survival in long-term follow-up, Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test, which assigns greater weight to early deaths, was used because CTLA4 mAb was administered only within one week after CD44-targeted NIR-PIT and early deaths played a more important role in capturing the difference in such survival characteristics between the treatment groups than late deaths in order to focus on activation of trigger on anti-tumor immunity in early phase after treatment.