Routine detection and identification in urine of stimulants, analgesics, antihistamines, local anaesthetics and other drugs, some of which may be used to modify performance in sport

Abstract

MANY sporting authorities throughout the world proscribe, in addition to the stimulants, other classes of drugs, e.g. the narcotics and phenothiazine tranquillizers. Present gas-liquid chromatographic procedures for the routine detection in urine of all these classes of drugs suffer from the disadvantage of using a variety of operating conditions (see for example Kazyak & Knoblock, 1963, who listed retention time data for 59 compounds using a single SE-30 column and temperatures from 115–250°, and also Street, 1967). The work of Beckett, Tucker & Moffat (1967) on stimulants is therefore now extended, using two isothermal GLC systems, to obtain retention data for 74 additional compounds. This allows the analysis of 116 compounds to be made using only three isothermal GLC systems. Drugs, other than those which may be used to modify performance in sport, are included since sportsmen may use them for medical reasons, e.g. phenacetin in analgesic preparations or a local anaesthetic for injury, and these may interfere with the dope control test.