Near-infrared phototherapy for patient-derived orthotopic xenograft model of hepatocellular carcinoma in combination with indocyanine green.

•Patient-derived tumor in xenograft model accumulated ICG over post-administration time.•Penetrative NIR light triggered sufficient ICG cytotoxicity for full remission of PDoX tumor.•Both in vitro and in vivo tumors were irresponsive under low energy input regardless of NIR irradiance and ICG dose.•The effective ICG dose for tumor elimination can halve through Real-time NIR-ICG phototherapy.