Steroid profiling in doping analysis

Abstract

Profiling androgens in urine samples is used in doping analysis for the detection of abused steroids of endogenous origin. These profiling techniques were originally developed for the analysis of testosterone, mostly by means of the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (T/E ratio). A study was performed on the influence of alcohol consumption on the T/E ratio. The applied dose increased the ratio of both males and females and it showed that, under the studied conditions, the risk of a positive doping test was realistic during the first 12 hours after the start of consumption. Today, profiling techniques based on androgens are also applied for the analysis of so-called food supplement steroids. The increasing number of steroids marketed as food supplement or occurring as impurity in supplement formulations, increases the need for analytical methodology to identify the administered substance with adequate sensitivity and specificity. This study shows that profiling oxygenated steroids can provide such specificity, as illustrated for the model compounds dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and androst-4-ene-3,17-dione. The same methodology could be applied for other food supplement steroids.