Screening and confirmation analysis of anabolic agents in human urine by gas chromatography — hybrid mass spectrometry (high resolution — time of flight) Original Research Article

This work presents a novel method for the detection of anabolic agents administration by the analysis of human urine. The method here presented allows both the screening and the confirmation of five anabolic agents at concentrations below 1 μg l−1, i.e. whenever it is not possible to obtain a full spectrum by gas chromatography technique with mass spectrometry detection unit (GC–MS) (single quadrupole mass detector), neither in electron impact (EI) nor in chemical ionization (CI) mode. The instrumental apparatus here used is constituted by a gas chromatograph (GC) coupled to a hybrid mass spectrometry detection (MS) unit, formed by a high resolution magnetic mass spectrometer (HRMS) and by a time of flight (TOF) orthogonal mass spectrometer. The proposed approach has been revealed very useful in the long term retrospective analysis of low concentration of anabolic agents and/or their metabolites, and especially of the five major anabolic agents (unchanged clenbuterol, and the main metabolites of methandienone, methyltestosterone, 19-nortestosterone and stanozolol), whose detection and quantitative confirmation, at levels of 2 μg l−1, is presently imposed by the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission for the antidoping analysis of athletes urine.