Screening and confirmation analysis of anabolic agents in human urine by gas chromatography - Hybrid mass spectrometry (high resolution - Time of flight)

this work presents a novel method for the detection of anabolic agents administration by the anal. of human urine. The method here presented allows both the screening and the confirmation of five anabolic agents at concns. below 1 .mu.g l-1, i.e. whenever it is not possible to obtain a full spectrum by gas chromatog. technique with mass spectrometry detection unit (GC-MS) (single quadrupole mass detector), neither in electron impact (EI) nor in chem. ionization (CI) mode. The instrumental app. here used is constituted by a gas chromatograph (GC) coupled to a hybrid mass spectrometry detection (MS) unit, formed by a high resoln. 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 anal. of low concn. of anabolic agents and/or their metabolites, and esp. of the five major anabolic agents (unchanged clenbuterol, and the main metabolites of methandienone, methyltestosterone, 19-nortestosterone and stanozolol), whose detection and quant. confirmation, at levels of 2 .mu.g l-1, is presently imposed by the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission for the antidoping anal. of athletes urine.