Representative images of the PSMA, cleaved caspase-3 and γH2AX staining in a treated tumor sample, NIR-only tumor control sample and treated healthy control sample are depicted in Fig. 5B. In PSMA-positive tumor regions, quantitative analysis showed an increased percentage of cleaved caspase-3 positive pixels in treated samples (0.16 ± 0.09) compared to NIR-only (0.09 ± 0.06, p = 0.021), ligand-only (0.09 ± 0.07, p = 0.041), and PBS-only samples (0.09 ± 0.08, p = 0.037) (Fig. 5C). This evidence concerns the gene FOLH1 and neoplasm.