Detection of Illicit Use of Growth Hormone

Illicit use of performance-enhancing drugs is a major problem in sports. Since 1967, the International Olym-pic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)2 have issued continuously updated lists of prohibited substances. In 1989, the first polypeptide hormones, human growth hormone (hGH), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and adrenocortico-tropin, were included in the list (1, 2). Presently, sub-stances increasing the release of hGH and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which mediates the action of hGH, are also banned (3). WADA has approved test methods for detection of most prohibited substances, but although hGH is widely used for doping, methods for detecting it are not available (3, 4). In this issue of Clinical Chemistry, Bidlingmaier et al. (5) describe a