A new series of hair test results involving anabolic steroids

Electrooxidation and Development of a Highly Sensitive Electrochemical Probe for Trace Determination of the Steroid 11-Desoxycorticosterone Drug Residues in Water

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs), a class of compounds frequently misused by competitors and unfortunately by the general population, have lately attracted international attention. Thus, extraordinary demands for developing low cost, precise, rapid, and facile protocols for detection and/or determination of AAS have arisen. Hence, the current strategy explores for the first time the redox features of 21-hydroxypregn-4-ene-3, 20-dione, namely, 11-desoxycorticosterone (DCS) AA drug steroid at a glassy-carbon electrode (GCE) in a wide pH range (pH 2.0–10.0) by adsorptive differential pulse-anodic stripping voltammetry (DP- ASV) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). At pH 2, DP-ASV and CV at the optimized pH 2–3 displayed an irreversible anodic peak at 0.4 V versus Ag/AgCl electrode. The dependency of the anodic peak current of the CV at 0.4 V at various concentrations and scan rate of the DCS drug was characteristic of an electrode-coupled electron transfer of EE type mechanism. At the optimized parameters, the proposed strategy allowed quantification of DCS in the concentration range 2.5 -13.19 nM (0.83-4.36 ng mL−1) with satisfactory limits of detection (LOD) and quantization (LOQ) of 9.3 × 10−1 nM (3.1 × 10−1 ng mL−1) and 3.1 nM (1.02 ng mL−1), respectively. A relative standard deviation (RSD) of ±3.93% (n = 5) at 4.0 ng mL−1 DCS was achieved. The established probe was fruitfully employed and validated for trace determination of DCS residues in environmental water. The interference of several common diverse species on DCS sensing was insignificant revealing good selectivity. The established probe exhibited good sensitivity, selectivity, precision, and accuracy, short analytical time, and low cost compared with the reported methods, for DCS determination.

A highly Sensitive Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode with Carboxylated Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes/Nafion Nano composite for Efficient and Cheap Voltammetric Sensing of Dianabol Steroid in Biological Fluid

The extraordinary prerequisite for the analysis of an anabolic steroid, namely dianabol (DB), has inspired towards the development of a cost-effective and high-performance sensing probe. Thus, a simple and robust electrochemical sensor (c-MWCNTs-Nafion®lGCE) for dianabol (DB), a widely used steroid, was developed using a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with functionalized carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-MWCNT) and Nafion®. At pH 7 - 8, differential pulse-cathodic stripping voltammetry (DP-CSV) displayed two cathodic peaks at -0.85 and -1.35 V that varied linearly over a wide range (9.0 × 10-9 (2.7 μg L-1) - 9.0 × 10-6 (2.7 × 103 μg L-1) mol L-1) and 2.9 × 10-6 (8.7 × 102 μg L-1) - 8.0 × 10-5 (2.4 × 104 μg L-1) mol L-1) of DB concentrations, respectively. The low limits of detection and quantification at peak I (-0.85 V) were 2.7 × 10-9 (8.1 × 10-1 ng mL-1) and 9.0 × 10-9 (2.7 ng mL-1) mol L-1, respectively. The repeatability and reproducibility displayed relative standard deviations lower than 5%. The method was applied for DB analysis in human urine and subsequently compared with the standard HPLC method. Interference of common metabolites in biological fluids samples to DB sensing was insignificant. This method has distinctive advantages e.g. precise, short analytical time, sensitive, economical, reproducible and miniaturized sample preparation for DB analysis in biological samples of human origin.

In a Case of Death Involving Steroids, Hair Testing is More Informative than Blood or Urine Testing

A 59-year-old male was found dead at home, with two empty vials of an oily preparation obtained from a manufacturer from East Europe. There was no label on the vial. The subject was a former weightlifter, also known as an anabolic steroids abuser. The local prosecutor ordered a body examination, which was unremarkable, and allowed collecting femoral blood, urine and scalp hair (6 cm, brown). He was treated for cardiac insufficiency with quinidine. Biological specimens were submitted not only to standard toxicological analyses including a screening with liquid chromatography (LC)-quadrupole time of flight, but also to a specific LC-tandem mass spectrometry method for anabolic steroids testing. Ethanol was not found in both blood and urine. Quinidine blood concentration (791 ng/mL) was therapeutic. No drug of abuse was identified. In blood, testosterone was less that 1 ng/mL and no other steroid was identified. In urine, testosterone/epitestosterone was 1.56 and boldenone was present at a concentration of 9 ng/mL. The hair test results, performed on the whole length, demonstrated repetitive steroids abuse, including not only testosterone (140 pg/mg), testosterone propionate (605 pg/mg) and testosterone decanoate (249 pg/mg), but also boldenone (160 pg/mg), trenbolone (143 pg/mg) and metandienone (60 pg/mg). Since forensic laboratories have limited access to steroid urinary metabolite reference material due to specific regulations (to avoid testing athletes before anti-doping verifications), hair analyses seem to be the best approach to document anabolic agents abuse. Indeed, in hair, the target drug is the parent compound; in addition, when compared to blood or urine, this matrix has a much larger window of detection. The pathologist concluded cardiac insufficiency in a context involving repetitive abuse of anabolic drugs. This case indicates that more attention should be paid to anabolic steroids, in a context of sudden cardiac death.

Complete Post-mortem Investigations in a Death Involving Clenbuterol After Long-term Abuse

The body of a 61-year-old man was found at his home by his wife, lying on the floor, near the bathroom, around midnight. He was known to be training for bodybuilding, using anabolic steroids. Police investigations revealed the presence of two types of tablets at home, one supposed to contain clenbuterol (0.040 mg) and the other stanozolol (10 mg). Testing the tablets revealed different dosages from what was expected, i.e., 0.073 and 11.5 mg/tablet, for clenbuterol and stanozolol, respectively. External body examination and autopsy, which was performed the next day, revealed generalized organ congestion and lack of any traumatic injury (confirmed by radiology). Cardiomegaly, with a heart weighing 692 g, was obvious. Anatomic pathology tests did not reveal evidence of malformations, but atheromatous plaque was identified in the coronaries during complete histology investigations. Femoral blood, urine, bile, gastric contents and two strands of hair (6 cm) were collected for toxicology. These specimens were submitted to standard analyses, but also to a specific LC-MS-MS method for clenbuterol and stanozolol testing. Clenbuterol was identified in all the tissues, including femoral blood (1.1 ng/mL), urine (7.2 ng/mL), bile (2.4 ng/mL), gastric content (3.2 ng/mL) and hair (23 pg/mg). Stanozolol only tested positive in hair (11 pg/mg). All other analyses were negative, including blood alcohol and drugs of abuse. The pathologists concluded to cardiac insufficiency with support of cardiomegaly, in a context involving repetitive abuse of anabolic drugs. This case indicates that more attention should be paid to clenbuterol, a drug widely used as a stimulant by people who want to lose weight, athletes and bodybuilding practitioners.

Testing for Stanozolol, Using UPLC–MS-MS and Confirmation by UPLC–q-TOF-MS, in Hair Specimens Collected from Five Different Anatomical Regions

An athlete challenged the result from an in-competition doping test which returned with an adverse analytical finding for stanozolol, claiming it was due to supplement contamination. Her lawyer asked the laboratory to analyze several hair specimens simultaneously collected from five different anatomical regions, head, arm, leg, pubis and armpit, to document the pattern of drug exposure. A specific UPLC–MS-MS method was developed. After decontamination with dichloromethane, stanozolol was extracted from hair in the presence of stanozolol-d3 used as internal standard, under alkaline conditions, with diethyl ether. Linearity was observed for concentrations ranging from 5 pg/mg to 10 ng/mg. The method has been validated according to linearity, precision and matrix effect. Concentrations of stanozolol in head hair, pubic hair, arm hair, leg hair and axillary hair were 73, 454, 238, 244 and 7,100 pg/mg, respectively. The concentration of stanozolol in head hair is in accordance with data published in the literature. When comparing the concentrations, body hair concentrations were higher than the concentration found in head hair. These results are consistent with a better incorporation rate of stanozolol in body hair when compared to head hair. The simultaneous positive concentrations in different hair types confirm the adverse analytical finding in urine of the top athlete, as the measured concentrations do not support the theory of contamination. For the first time, an anabolic agent was simultaneously tested in hair collected from five different anatomical regions from the same subject, with a large distribution of concentrations, due to anatomical variations, and these findings will help interpretation in further doping cases when documented with hair.