Human sports drug testing by mass spectrometry.

Since the installation of anti-doping rules and regulations and their international enforcement in the mid-1960s, mass spectrometry has been an integral part of doping control procedures. Although its utility was limited in the first decade, instrumental improvements and method optimizations have made mass spectrometry, in all its facets, an indispensable tool in modern sports drug testing. In this review, milestones in doping control analysis accomplished in Germany and reaching from the early developments to the current use of hyphenated mass spectrometric techniques concerning low- and high molecular mass analytes are presented. The considered drug classes include anabolic agents, peptidic drugs, nucleotide-derived therapeutics, approved and non-approved organic as well as inorganic analytes, and particular focus is put on drug class- and instrument-driven strategies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Mass Spec Rev 36:16-46, 2017.