Doping control in sports medicine.

Doping control has become one of the strongest measures to reduce the impact of doping in sports. The rationale for doping control is based on the need to maintain both ethical and medical principles. Among the banned pharmacological substances, the most relevant to sports medicine are anabolic agents, stimulants, narcotic, peptide hormones, diuretics, masking agents, and adrenergic beta-blockers. Optimized use of state-of-the-art analytical methodology and suitable quality control mechanisms warrant reliability in the laboratory. Adequate interpretation of results requires knowledge of pharmacology, toxicology, drug metabolism, and pharmacokinetics. The detection and confirmation of doping using endogenous substances are especially difficult for urine testing. The alteration caused in indirect markers in other biological materials, such as blood, will be the focus of further developments in the field.