ArticleFrontiers in physiology2020
Prevalence Estimate of Blood Doping in Elite Track and Field Athletes During Two Major International Events.
Article in Frontiers in physiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Doping Prevalence in Competitive Sport: Evidence Synthesis with "Best Practice" Recommendations and Reporting Guidelines from the WADA Working Group on Doping Prevalence.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2021Pooled it
- Erythropoiesis-Targeted Doping in Sports: From Improved Oxygen Transport to Cardiovascular Risk.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2026Review
- Cardiovascular Implications of the Enhanced Games: Performance Enhancing Drugs in Competition and Recreation.Sports medicine - open · 2026Review
- Health and Performance Challenges in the Era of Human Enhancement: Insights from Sport Medicine Professionals.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Article
- The 'selves' in doping and its psychosocial mechanisms: harmonised multi-country evidence from high-performing athletes in the UK, US, and China.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- The effect of doping, anti-doping measures, and sociological factors on the annual distribution of all-time top performances in short, middle, and long-distance running.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Effective anti-doping testing program during major sport events: a comparative analysis of two multi-sport tournaments held in Poland in 2017 and 2023.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Olympic AI agenda: we need collaboration to achieve evolution.British journal of sports medicine · 2024Article
- Insight on Exercise-Induced Heart Remodeling in Different Track and Field Disciplines.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Can the recent sex-specific evolutions in elite running performances be attributed to advanced footwear technology?Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- The potential impact of advanced footwear technology on the recent evolution of elite sprint performances.PeerJ · 2023Article
- Removal of the influence of plasma volume fluctuations for the athlete biological passport and stability of haematological variables in active women taking oral contraception.Drug testing and analysis · 2022Article
- Autologous Blood Doping Induced Changes in Red Blood Cell Rheologic Parameters, RBC Age Distribution, and Performance.Biology · 2022Article
- The Training Characteristics of World-Class Distance Runners: An Integration of Scientific Literature and Results-Proven Practice.Sports medicine - open · 2022Review
- The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of the performance-enhancing drugs.Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis · 2022Article
- Hidden figures: Revisiting doping prevalence estimates previously reported for two major international sport events in the context of further empirical evidence and the extant literature.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Ten years of collecting hematological athlete biological passport samples-perspectives from a National Anti-doping Organization.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Racing Clean in a Tainted World: A Qualitative Exploration of the Experiences and Views of Clean British Elite Distance Runners on Doping and Anti-Doping.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Integrating Whole Blood Transcriptomic Collection Procedures Into the Current Anti-Doping Testing System, Including Long-Term Storage and Re-Testing of Anti-Doping Samples.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2021Article
- Refined Analysis of a Cross-Sectional Doping Survey Among Recreational Triathletes: Support for the Nutritional Supplement Gateway Hypothesis.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In elite sport, the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) was invented to tackle cheaters by monitoring closely changes in biological parameters, flagging atypical variations. The hematological module of the ABP was indeed adopted in 2011 by World Athletics (WA). This study estimates the prevalence of blood doping based on hematological parameters in a large cohort of track and field athletes measured at two international major events (2011 and 2013 WA World Championships) with a hypothesized decrease in prevalence due to the ABP introduction. A total of 3683 blood samples were collected and analyzed from all participating athletes originating from 209 countries. The estimate of doping prevalence was obtained by using a Bayesian network with seven variables, as well as "blood doping" as a variable mimicking doping with low-doses of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO), to generate reference cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) for the Abnormal Blood Profile Score (ABPS) from the ABP. Our results from robust hematological parameters indicate an estimation of an overall blood doping prevalence of 18% in 2011 and 15% in 2013 (non-significant difference) in average in endurance athletes [95% Confidence Interval (CI) 14-22 and 12-19% for 2011 and 2013, respectively]. A higher prevalence was observed in female athletes (22%, CI 16-28%) than in male athletes (15%, CI 9-20%) in 2011. In conclusion, this study presents the first comparison of blood doping prevalence in elite athletes based on biological measurements from major international events that may help scientists and experts to use the ABP in a more efficient and deterrent way.
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