20 minutes – Even better to detect blood doping

Used by some athletes to increase their performance, blood doping (or doping with EPO) involves increasing the number of red blood cells that carry oxygen in the muscles.

For the last ten years, the control of this type of doping has been done via a biological passport, which makes it possible to record suspicious level changes in certain blood parameters of athletes, the Lausanne CHUV said Wednesday in a statement.

The current analysis process, however, involves complex, expensive and constraining logistics. Its principle consists in detecting, for example, the abnormal presence of reticulocytes, that is, nascent red blood cells.

After a blood test carried out by specialized personnel, the sample is transport by vehicle under specific technical conditions to ensure the validity of sample. Finally, the delay to validly perform the laboratory tests is very short.

all this adds to the fact that, in the face of controls, athletes in search of doping have adapted themselves by resorting to microdoses of EPO, or barely detectable microtransfusions.

A drop of blood is enough

Under the supervision of Dr. Nicolas Leuenberger, a LAD team, attached to the French-speaking University Center for Lung Medicine, carried out research on an RNA molecule found only in nascent red blood cells.

The method developed in Lausanne requires only a drop of blood collected at the end of the finger, dried on blotting paper. The levy, which can also be performed on the shoulder, does not need to be performed by specialized staff. The sample can then be transmitted by simple mailing to the laboratory, where the analysis takes only a few hours.

If this method is endorsed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), it could make it possible to track athletes much more regularly. Its effectiveness should also make it possible to detect blood doping that is currently invisible.

Beyond sport

It also opens up the possibility of conducting retrospective analyzes on samples collected in the past, and thus detecting doping that would have escaped control, according to this work published in the American journal Clinical Chemistry.

But beyond the world of sport, this discovery could have implications in the medical world, says Dr. Leuenberger, quoted in the communiqu: term, blood tests should indeed become much simpler practice. Patients could collect a drop of blood on their finger before sending it to the laboratory in the mail.

(Nxp / ats)