Ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography-(tandem) mass spectrometry in human sports drug testing: possibilities and limitations.

Doping control analytical laboratories for human sports predominantly employ nowadays chromatographic-mass spectrometric test methods for routine, high throughput screening and confirmation assays concerning low and high molecular mass analytes. Liquid chromatography-(tandem) mass spectrometry [(LC-MS(/MS)] and particularly ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-MS/MS instruments have become devices of choice due to their indispensable capabilities that compensate for limitations inherent to other commonly used strategies such as immunological and gas chromatography-(tandem) mass spectrometry [(GC-MS(/MS)]-based detection methods. UHPLC-MS/MS-based assays at low mass spectrometric resolution have been established allowing for fast and sensitive targeted analyses focusing on pre-selected target analytes with diagnostic precursor-product ion pairs. Combining UHPLC to high resolution/high accuracy MS(/MS) further expanded the targeted approach (i.e., plotting extracted ion chromatograms of protonated or deprotonated molecules as well as product ions measured with accurate masses) toward non-targeted analyses enabling also retrospective data mining. In this review, recent applications of UHPLC-MS/MS in sports drug testing procedures published between 2008 and 2012 are presented and advantages as well as limitations in a short- and long-term perspective are discussed.