An international intercomparison for 19-norandrosterone in human urine: the Comité Consultatif pour la Quantité de Matière (CCQM) Pilot Study CCQM-P68

Under the auspices of the Comité Consultatif pour la Quantité de Matière (CCQM) a laboratory intercomparison, CCQM-P68, was co-ordinated by the National Measurement Institute of Australia (NMIA) in 2005 involving the analysis of the steroid 19-norandrosterone (19-NA) in human urine. 19-NA is the major metabolite of nandrolone, a commonly abused anabolic agent. It is routinely tested by many sports drug testing laboratories and several national metrology institutes have developed reference methods to provide reference values for the certification of reference materials. The material distributed for the intercomparison was a freeze-dried human urine candidate reference material containing 19-NA at a level close to the allowed World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) cut-off for this anabolic agent, i.e. 2 ng/ml. Four national/designated metrology institutes participated in the intercomparison and their results for this complex analysis were in excellent agreement, with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of only 1.7%. The expanded uncertainties at the 95% level of confidence for the reported results ranged from 3.7 to 7.0% at the 2.15 ng/g level.