Abstract

Glucocorticosteroid drugs are synthetic analogues of hormones, which are anti-inflammatory agents, alleviate pain and enhance the athlete's concentration capacity during strength and endurance competitions. Initially, corticosteroids have been detected through GCMS; the main inconvenience has been the low volatility of most corticosteroids, which requires an additional derivatization step. This derivatization step is time-consuming and, due to relatively great number of polar functions from a corticosteroid's molecule, does not have the best results. Therefore, for the corticosteroids' analysis, it has been used LCMS technique; this technique has been proven to be a sensitive method, even to low concentration of corticosteroids, and which does not require derivatization. A specific issue is raised by betamethasone and dexamethasone: they are epimers; the only structural difference between them is the orientation of the methyl group on carbon 16. As a result, the two corticosteroids have very closed retention times and very similar mass spectra. Using regular LC/MS ionization techniques (such as ESI or APCI), their tandem mass spectra reveal the same fragmentation ions, which vary only in abundance. Together with Doping Control Center from Ankara, Turkey, we have developed an excretion study of dexamethasone after intramuscular administration. Aus dem Text (geändert)