Quantification of doping compounds in faecal samples from racing pigeons, by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only common in humans, but also in animal sports, including racing of horses, greyhounds and pigeons. The development of accurate analytical procedures to detect doping agents in sports is crucial in order to protect the fair-play of the game, avoid financial fraud in the attribution of eventual awards and, even more important, to protect the animals from harmful drugs and/or dangerous dosage regimens. The present study aimed to develop and validate, a method that enabled the screening and confirmation of the presence of a beta-agonist (clenbuterol) and three corticosteroids (betamethasone, prednisolone and budesonide) in faeces from pigeons. The extraction procedure entailed the combination of liquid-liquid extraction with solid-phase extraction and the analysis was performed by liquid- chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry, with a single 15 minute chromatographic run-time. The method was validated concerning selectivity, linearity (with coefficients of determination always >0.99), accuracy (87.5-114.9%), inter-day and intra-day precisions, limits of detection (0.14-1.81 ng/g) and limits of quantification (0.49-6.08 ng/g), stability and extraction recovery (71.0%-99.3%). The method was successfully applied for the analysis of samples from two pigeons that had been orally administered betamethasone, demonstrating its suitability for doping control purposes.