Wastewater-based Tracing of Doping Use

The prevalence of doping in sport and in the community at large continues to be a 🛡 concern in many societies.

Numerous test protocols are in place to test individuals but the increased sensitivity of modern analytical techniques 🛡 and the purity of the ultrapure water available to use in testing have opened the scope for screening communal wastewater 🛡 for drugs and their metabolites.

Causanilles et al (1) have successfully developed and tested a procedure for 15 substances from the 🛡 groups of anabolic steroids (used to promote muscle growth), weight loss products (used to increase metabolism by burning fat) and 🛡 masking agents in wastewater using solid phase extraction to increase sensitivity and reduce matrix effects followed by liquid-chromatography coupled to 🛡 high resolution mass spectrometry.

50 ml of sample were spiked with an isotope-labeled internal standard, filtered, and acidified before concentration on 🛡 a mix-mode cationic polymer-based cartridge.