Screening for hydroxyethyl starch (HES) doping in sport

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Analytical Chemistry
• Biochemistry

Background:

• Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) is a plasma volume expander with a history of misuse in sports.
• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has prohibited HES since 2000 due to its illicit use.
• Existing detection methods, primarily gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), can be resource-intensive.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simple, low-cost screening method for hydroxyethyl starch (HES) in athletes' urine.
• To reduce the number of samples requiring complex GC-MS analysis.
• To validate the screening method's efficiency in a large cohort of athletes.

Main Methods:

• Acid hydrolysis of HES in urine samples.
• Detection of glucose and hydroxyethyl glucose derivatives using Benedict's reaction.
• Confirmation of suspect samples using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC).

Main Results:

• The developed screening method was applied to 2627 urine samples from Brazilian soccer players and Pan-American Games athletes.
• 71 samples (2.7%) were flagged as suspect and underwent GC-MS analysis.
• No positive HES results were confirmed by GC-MS, indicating the absence of banned substance use in the tested population.

Conclusions:

• The developed Benedict's reaction-based screening method is efficient and cost-effective for detecting HES in urine.
• The method successfully reduces the need for extensive GC-MS analysis.
• Adapted TLC methods aid in visualizing HES hydrolysis products, further supporting screening efficacy.