A novel ultra-high-performance supercritical fluid chromatography hyphenated to tandem mass spectrometry method for the analysis of urinary endogenous steroids in the anti-doping context

The first step in the detection of testosterone (T) doping is to measure the urinary steroid profile for the athlete biological passport (ABP). To harmonise the analysis between anti-doping laboratories, urinary steroid profiling is parametrised in deep detail and shall be performed by gas chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry (GC–MS). However, due to its requirement for extensive sample preparation, alternatives to GC–MS are being actively pursued. The aim of this study was the evaluation of Ultra-High-Performance Supercritical Fluid Chromatography hyphenated to tandem Mass Spectrometry (UHPSFC-MS/MS) as an alternative for the quantification of endogenous urinary steroids. In this context, we developed a high throughput sample extraction method, followed by a novel UHPSFC-MS/MS method for the analysis of 10 endogenous urinary steroids which are relevant for doping control analysis. Depending on the steroid, the herein presented method is capable of quantification from 0.5 ng/mL up to 10 µg/mL. After validation, the applicability of the method was evaluated by analysing 132 authentic urine samples, which demonstrated results similar to classical GC–MS analysis. Steroid concentrations determined by UHPSFC-MS/MS were slightly overestimated in comparison with GC–MS, but the ratios had <10 % difference between the two methods. As the ABP considers the steroid ratios for passport evaluation, the herein presented method could be used for steroid profiling without reducing the sensitivity of the ABP. Thus, we would propose to consider UHPSFC-MS/MS as an alternative to GC–MS after more tests would have been performed to support our findings. Furthermore, we have also investigated the potential of this technology for sample purification prior to Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) for the differentiation between exogenous and endogenous origin of T and its metabolites. While the achieved separation was sufficient to purify urine samples for IRMS analysis in our proof-of-concept study, the instrumental parameters should be further refined for future use.