Doping control in Japan. An automated extraction procedure for the doping test.

Abstract

Horse racing in Japan consists of two systems, the National (10 racecourses) and the Regional public racing (32 racecourses) having about 2,500 racing meetings in total per year. Urine or saliva samples for dope testing are collected by the officials from thw winner, second and third, and transported to the laboratory in a frozen state. In 1975, 76, 117 samples were analyzed by this laboratory. The laboratory provides the following four methods of analysis, which are variously combined by request. (1) Method for detection of drugs extracted by chloroform from alkalinized sample. (2) Methods for detection of camphor and its derivatives. (3) Method for detection of barbiturates. (4) Method for detection of ethanol. These methods consist of screening, mainly by thin layer chromatography and confirmatory tests using ultra violet spectrophotometry, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry combined with gas chromatography. In the screening test of doping drugs, alkalinized samples are extracted with chloroform. In order to automate the extraction procedure, the authors contrived a new automatic extractor. They also devised a means of pH adjustment of horse urine by using buffer solution and an efficient mechanism of evaporation of organic solvent. Analytical data obtained by the automatic extractor are presented in this paper. In 1972, we started research work to automate the extraction procedure in method (1) above, and the Automatic Extractor has been in use in routine work since last July. One hundred and twnety samples per hour are extracted automatically by three automatic extractors. The analytical data using this apparatus is presented below.