Automated Dried Blood Spot Method Boosts Doping Agent Detection

Doping control in sports is critical for fair competition and athlete health, requiring highly sensitive and efficient analytical methods. Traditional approaches for detecting performance-enhancing drugs often involve invasive blood draws and labor-intensive sample preparation, which can limit throughput and accessibility. This study addresses the need for a more efficient, less invasive, and highly sensitive method for detecting a broad range of doping agents, including lower molecular mass peptides and non-peptide substances, from minimal sample volumes.

The automated DBS method demonstrated significantly enhanced detection capabilities for a wide range of doping agents, offering substantial improvements over manual techniques. For lower molecular mass peptides, the method achieved impressive detection limits as low as 0.1 ng/mL, representing a 2-fold improvement in sensitivity compared to conventional manual methods. Non-peptide doping agents consistently showed high recoveries, ranging from 75% to 95%, with excellent inter-day precision below 10% RSD. The method's linearity was confirmed across a concentration range spanning two orders of magnitude, with R² values consistently above 0.99. This allowed for the simultaneous detection of over 50 different doping substances, including various anabolic agents and hormones, within a single analytical run. The fully automated system achieved a 30% reduction in sample preparation time and a 5-fold increase in sample throughput compared to conventional manual techniques, while maintaining high analytical sensitivity and specificity.