Discrimination of the Nature of Doping with 19-Norsteroids through Hair Analysis

[摘要] Nandrolone (19-nortestosterone or 17β-hydroxy-19-nor-4-androsten-3-one) has been one of the most abused anabolic steroids, and doping practices are increasing, as revealed by numerous positive cases during recent years. Athletes use nandrolone because it has been claimed to increase lean body mass, strength, and aggressiveness, and shorten the recovery time between workouts.Nandrolone is metabolized to norandrosterone (NA) and noretiocholanolone (1). Other 19-norsteroids, such as norandrostenedione or norandrostenediol, classified as anabolic androgenic steroids by the Olympic Movement Anti-doping Code of December 1999 (2), are available over the counter or through the Internet and have the same metabolites as nandrolone (1)(3)(4).Although norandrostenediol and norandrostenedione are banned by the International Olympic Committee, there is a great need in forensic and sports sciences to discriminate nandrolone from other 19-norsteroids. This is obviously not possible in urine because the metabolites are common. The ratio between NA and noretiocholanolone has been recently proposed to differentiate the nature of the doping agent, but mixtures can be ingested (4).Because forensic laboratories can be involved in testimony dealing with doping agents, the idea of using hair for doping control has emerged because hair analysis has been accepted in other court cases. Hair can both confirm repetitive abuse and identify …

[学科分类] 过敏症与临床免疫学