Applications of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry in doping control.

This paper reviews liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometric (LC-MS) procedures for the screening, identification and quantification of doping agents in urine and other biological samples and devoted to drug testing in sports. Reviewed methods published approximately within the last five years and cited in the PubMed database have been divided into groups using the same classification of the 2004 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List. Together with procedures specifically developed for anti-doping analysis, LC-MS applications used in other fields (e.g., therapeutic drug monitoring, clinical and forensic toxicology, and detection of drugs illicitly used in livestock production) have been included when considered as potentially extensible to doping control. Information on the reasons for potential abuse by athletes, on the requirements established by WADA for analysis, and on the WADA rules for the interpretation of analytical findings are provided for the different classes of drugs.