Drugs in Sport: A new test to detect the latest generation of blood-boosting drugs should be in place before the Athens Olympics.
A laboratory in France has devised a test for stabilised haemoglobins, said to be used by endurance athletes to raise the levels of oxygen in the blood.
Rumours of the drugs' use have been around for four years and there were fears that, without a test, endurance events in Athens would be blighted in the same way that the reputations of cycling and running were tarnished prior to the introduction of a test for the blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin in 2000.
As with EPO, the side effects could include cardiac problems and thrombosis, and one variety of stabilised haemoglobins has been withdrawn because it was possibly responsible for an increased death rate during clinical trials. "The test has been presented to the AMA, is currently being validated and could be ready in six months or a year, but certainly will be there in time for Athens," said Professor Jacques de Ceaurriz of the French national anti-doping laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry, near Paris.
A test for EPO, formerly the drug of choice among professional cyclists, was devised by De Ceaurriz and first applied at the Sydney Olympics. "We hope there will be less confusion and argument than there was over the EPO test for this one, as finalising the EPO test was not simple," he said.
Unlike EPO, which stimulates bone marrow to produce extra red cells, stabilised haemoglobins are bovine or human red cells extracted and modified in a lab. They are simpler to administer than EPO, being transfused into the blood, but have a similar effect - although the boost to oxygen carrying, and hence an athlete's endurance, does not last as long.
Much of the impetus for their development has come from the armed forces in various countries, which want stable blood products for use in transfusions on battlefields.
Stabilised haemoglobins have been available in a veterinary form, Oxyglobin, for several years; one version, Hemopure, is currently on sale in South Africa. There has been speculation about their possible use in endurance sports such as cycling and cross-country skiing since the advent of the EPO test in 2000.
"They are quite unusual molecules, different from natural haemoglobin, and quite easy to spot in the blood," said De Ceaurriz.
The test uses liquid chromatography and also examines the properties of the molecules in an electric field and compares them with natural haemoglobin.
Guardian Service
