Wastewater-based Tracing of Doping Use
The prevalence of doping in sport and in the community at large continues to be a 8️⃣ concern in many societies.
Numerous test protocols are in place to test individuals but the increased sensitivity of modern analytical techniques 8️⃣ and the purity of the ultrapure water available to use in testing have opened the scope for screening communal wastewater 8️⃣ for drugs and their metabolites.
Causanilles et al (1) have successfully developed and tested a procedure for 15 substances from the 8️⃣ groups of anabolic steroids (used to promote muscle growth), weight loss products (used to increase metabolism by burning fat) and 8️⃣ masking agents in wastewater using solid phase extraction to increase sensitivity and reduce matrix effects followed by liquid-chromatography coupled to 8️⃣ high resolution mass spectrometry.
50 ml of sample were spiked with an isotope-labeled internal standard, filtered, and acidified before concentration on 8️⃣ a mix-mode cationic polymer-based cartridge.
