SphereMetrics: A User-Friendly Shiny App to Measure Spheroid Area and Eccentricity

The accurate measurement of spheroid area and morphology is critical for the progression of the integration of 3D models in in vitro cancer research and is increasingly used to measure effective therapeutic efficacy of X-ray radiation. Current methods of measuring spheroids require labour-intensive manual analysis or the use of complex software tools. SphereMetrics was created as a user-friendly Shiny app with a straightforward interface designed to streamline the process of measuring the area and eccentricity of spheroids. It allows the upload and automated detection of spheroids across multiple file formats and generates robust and objective area and eccentricity measurements. Area measurements derived from SphereMetrics were compared to manual quantification with ImageJ and AnaSP for untreated and irradiated (0–20 Gy) human neuroendocrine BON-1 cancer spheroids. When compared to ImageJ and AnaSP, SphereMetrics was shown to provide fast, accurate data (R2 = 0.87 and 0.83, respectively). Spheroid analysis took 19.92 ± 8 s/image with SphereMetrics, approximately four times faster than ImageJ analysis (89.81 ± 11.52 s/image) and nine times faster than AnaSP (183.36 ± 31.62 s/image). SphereMetrics represents an accessible and efficient tool for spheroid analysis, facilitating data collection and analysis for routine in vitro model research, ideal for non-programmers.