Growth hormone administration leads to the alteration of the concentrations or ratios of several serum proteins, and this change may be used as a means of detecting exogenous GH. An ideal marker or combination of markers would have well-defined reference ranges, would change in response to GH administration and would remain altered after GH has been discontinued (
Holt, 2007). The marker should be largely unaffected by other regulators of GH secretion such as exercise or injury and should be validated across populations.
This approach was pioneered by the large multi-centre GH-2000 project coordinated by Peter Sönksen with funding from the European Union under their BIOMED 2 initiative, with additional funding from the International Olympic Committee and the rhGH manufacturers Novo Nordisk and Pharmacia. The aim was to develop a test in time for the Sydney Olympic Games. It had three main components, the first of which was a cross-sectional study of elite athletes at National or International events to establish a reference range of selected markers of GH action (
Healy et al., 2005). Blood samples taken within 2
h of competitions showed that the markers were dependent on age as is the case in the general population, but in contrast, sporting discipline, gender and body shape had little effect. The findings of this study were subsequently confirmed by the Australian Japanese consortium led by Ken Ho. In a study of 1103 elite athletes sampled out of competition, less than 10% of the total variance of the markers was explained by gender, sporting discipline, ethnicity and body mass index, whereas age contributed to between 20 and 35% of the variance (
Nelson et al., 2006).
The second component of the GH-2000 project was the ‘wash-out’ study (
Wallace et al., 1999,
2000). When the project was conceived, 25 potential markers of GH action were considered. The aim of the ‘wash-out’ study was to narrow this number down to the most suitable markers for a more in-depth analysis. rhGH was administered to recreational male athletes for 1 week, with blood samples collected during and after the GH administration. Subjects also undertook exercise tests to assess the potential effect of ‘competition’ on the markers. Nine markers, either members of the IGF–IGF-binding protein axis or markers of bone and soft tissue turnover, were then selected for analysis in the third component of the GH-2000 project. This was a 28-day GH administration study involving self-administered rhGH at two doses to 102 recreational athletes under double-blind, placebo-controlled conditions to evaluate the potential markers for their ability to discriminate active drug from placebo and to assess the ‘window of opportunity’ when the test remained positive after rhGH was stopped (
Dall et al., 2000;
Longobardi et al., 2000).
From these studies, the GH-2000 project proposed a test based on IGF-I and type 3 pro-collagen (P-III-P) (
Powrie et al., 2007) (
Figure 5). These markers were chosen because they provided the best discrimination between individuals receiving GH or placebo during the randomized controlled trial. They exhibit little diurnal or day-to-day variation and are largely unaffected by exercise or gender (
McHugh et al., 2005). In the wash-out study, IGF-I and P-III-P increased 20 and 10.2%, respectively, following exercise, but this increase was small in comparison with the larger 300% increase in the markers with GH (
Wallace et al., 1999,
2000). Although discrimination was the prime reason for the selection, it is important to note that these proteins are produced by different tissues, thereby reducing the number of pathological conditions that could lead to an elevation in both markers and potential false-positives.
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Figure 5
Change in IGF-I (a) and P-III-P (b) following the administration of GH or placebo for 28 days to 50 healthy male volunteers.
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It is known that there is sexual dimorphism in the GH–IGF axis. There are small differences in IGF-I and P-III-P concentrations in elite male and female athletes (
Healy et al., 2005), although gender explained around 1% of the overall variance in these markers (
Nelson et al., 2006). Women are known to be inherently more resistant to the actions of GH and so the increase in markers is less pronounced in women than in men (
Dall et al., 2000;
Longobardi et al., 2000). This potential disadvantage may be offset because women may need to receive higher doses to obtain a performance-enhancing benefit.
Although a single marker could be used, by combining markers in conjunction with gender-specific equations, ‘discriminant functions’, the sensitivity and specificity of the ability to detect GH abuse can be improved compared with single-marker analysis (
Powrie et al., 2007).
The procedure used to generate the discriminant functions involves splitting the available data into two: a ‘training’ set of data is used to calculate the discriminant function and a ‘confirmatory’ set is then used to validate the sensitivity and specificity of the discriminant function. The confirmatory set required to ensure the model is applicable to the general population and not just the ‘training’ set.
The sensitivity of any test is dependent on the specificity. Standard medical practice accepts as ‘normal’ values those being within two standard deviations of the mean, but by definition, 5% of the population lie outside the ‘normal range’. This creates an unacceptably high false-positive rate if applied to athletes. The specificity to be used has not been determined by the anti-doping authorities, but nevertheless the GH-2000 formulae show reasonable sensitivity even up to false-positive rates of 1 in 10
000 and beyond (
Figure 6). The formula has been modified more recently to take into account the effect of age to prevent younger athletes from being placed at a disadvantage (
Powrie et al., 2007).
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Figure 6
Change in GH-2000 score in men ( a) and women ( b) following 28 days of GH administration. Dotplot of the standardized scores for each visit day of the studies by group and data set. The mean of a normal population is 0 and the standard deviation is 1. (more …)
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The results of the GH-2000 project were presented at an International Olympic Committee workshop in Rome in March 1999 to review critically and assure the quality of the results. The conclusion of the workshop was strong support for the methodology, but it was felt that several issues needed to be addressed before the test could be fully implemented at an Olympic games. The biggest issue was related to potential ethnic effects of GH, as the vast majority of volunteers in the GH-2000 study were white Europeans. It was felt that injury could confound the test and further work was needed to develop immunoassays owned by International Olympic Committee and subsequently World Anti-Doping Agency to prevent arbitrary changes being made to commercially owned immunoassays.
Apart from the assay development, these issues have largely been addressed by the GH-2004 study. A further cross-sectional study of elite athletes has shown that although there are small differences in the mean values between ethnic groups—for example, the IGF-I concentrations in Afro-Caribbean men are approximately 8.2% lower than white European men—nearly all the values lie within the 99% prediction intervals for white European athletes, regardless of ethnic background. A further double-blind GH administration study suggests that the response to GH in other ethnic groups is similar to white European amateur athletes. The effect of injury was systemically examined by the GH-2004 team who followed 143 men and 40 women following a sporting injury. There was no change in IGF-I over the 12-week follow-up, but P-III-P increased by approximately 20%, reaching a peak 2–3 weeks after injury. This, however, did not cause any false-positive readings in the proposed test combining IGF-I with P-III-P.
Several other groups have also examined the use of GH-dependent markers, the first of which pre-dated the GH-2000 study. In this first study, the ratio of IGFBP-2 to IGFBP-3 was found to discriminate between those taking GH or placebo (
Kicman et al., 1997). These findings were not supported by the GH-2000 study, although several other groups have confirmed the utility of IGF-I and P-III-P. The Institut für Dopinganalytik und Sportbiochemie in Kreischa, Germany, undertook a 14-day GH administration study in amateur male athletes and derived a discriminant function based on IGF-I, P-III-P and IGFBP-3 (
Kniess et al., 2003). Most recently, the Australian Japanese Consortium presented the results of an 8-week GH administration study at the American Endocrine Society meeting in Toronto in June 2007. This also confirmed the value of IGF-I and P-III-P, although this suggested that an alternative bone marker (carboxyterminal cross-linked telopeptide of type I collagen) might provide better discrimination during the wash-out phase. This study also examined the effect of co-administration of anabolic steroids in males and showed that there were additive effects on P-III-P.
These confirmatory studies are important because it is unknown how well these GH-2000 formulae will perform in ‘real life’, where the patterns and doses of GH abused by athletes are unclear. When the male GH-2000 formula was applied to an independent data set obtained from the Institut für Dopinganalytik und Sportbiochemie Kreischa, 90% of the individuals who had received GH were correctly identified and there were no false-positives, findings that were identical to those of the GH-2000 data when the formula was used (
Erotokritou-Mulligan et al., 2007).
Although this methodology has been rigorously tested, the development of World Anti-Doping Agency-owned immunoassays has lagged behind the science underpinning the method, despite the International Olympic Committee having been made aware of the need for these assays before the worldwide introduction of this test.