Drugs in sports: analytical trends

Abstract

A minority of athletes continues to use prohibited drugs in sports to enhance performance. Athletes discovered using these drugs can be subject to severe penalties, often resulting in media and public scrutiny, especially at major events such as the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set out the classes of the substances it bans in the IOC Medical Code. In many cases "old" drugs such as anabolic steroids are still used, and current testing regimes can test for these. Advances in the therapeutic treatment of illness have resulted in new drugs or practices, many of which are difficult to detect and which have been turned to the sinister role of performance enhancement. Detection of some newly developed drugs which have been placed on the banned list offers a major challenge to laboratories involved in sports dope testing. In some cases this requires research into new applications of research techniques. These techniques involve the novel use of gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry (GC/MS) techniques, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), carbon isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and immunoassay techniques.