ArticleBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2018
Futility of current urine salbutamol doping control.
Article in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Model-based meta-analysis of salbutamol pharmacokinetics and practical implications for doping control.CPT: pharmacometrics & systems pharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- Performance-Enhancing Effects of Inhaled Medications: Implications for Heart, Muscle Function, and Doping Detection in Athletes.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Review
- Cefuroxime axetil dosing regimens and probability of target attainment in adults and children.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Article
- Rapid and Simple Buffer Exchange Using Cation-Exchange Chromatography to Improve Point-of-Care Detection of Pharmacological Agents.Biosensors · 2023Article
- Anti-doping Policy, Therapeutic Use Exemption and Medication Use in Athletes with Asthma: A Narrative Review and Critical Appraisal of Current Regulations.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2019Review
- Futility of current urine salbutamol doping control.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2018Article
- Development and Validation of an LC-MS/MS-Based Screening Method for Determination of Salbutamol in Urine for Doping Control Using a Surrogate Analyte Approach with Stable Isotope-Labeled Salbutamol (Salbutamol-d9).Iranian journal of pharmaceutical research : IJPRArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsSalbutamol is used in the management of obstructive bronchospasm, including that of some elite athletes. It is claimed that high salbutamol (oral) doses may also have an anabolic effect. Therefore, inhalation of salbutamol is restricted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to a maximal daily dose. Urine is tested for violations, but recent cases have resulted in a debate regarding the validity of this approach. It was our aim to determine whether current approaches are sufficiently able to differentiate approved usage from violations.
methodsWe extracted pharmacokinetic parameters from literature for salbutamol and its sulphated metabolite. From these parameters, a semi-physiological pharmacokinetic model of inhaled and orally administered salbutamol was synthesized, validated against literature data, and used to perform clinical trial simulations (n = 1000) of possible urine concentrations over time resulting from WADA-allowed and oral unacceptable dosages.
resultsThe synthesized model was able to predict the literature data well. Simulations showed a very large range of salbutamol concentrations, with a significant portion of virtual subjects (15.4%) exceeding the WADA threshold limit of 1000 ng ml
conclusionsThe observed large variability in urine concentrations indicates that determining the administered dose from a single untimed urine sample is not feasible. The current threshold inadvertently leads to incorrect assumptions of violation, whereas many violations will go unnoticed, especially when samples are taken long after drug administration. These issues, combined with the dubious assertion of its anabolic effect, leads us to conclude that the large effort involved in testing should be reconsidered.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.