title: Erythropoietin and blood doping.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To outline the direct and indirect approaches in the fight against blood doping in sports, the different strategies that have been used and are currently being used to fight efficiently against blood doping are presented and discussed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The paper outlines the different approaches and diagnostic tools that some federations have to identify and target sports people demonstrating abnormal blood profiles. Originally blood tests were introduced for medical reasons and for limiting misuse of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO). In this way it became possible to prevent athletes with haematocrit levels well above normal, and potentially dangerous for their health, competing in sport. Today, with nearly a decade of blood testing experience, sports authorities should be familiar with some of the limitations and specially the ability of blood tests performed prior to competitions to fight efficiently against the misuse of rHuEPO, blood transfusion, and artificial haemoglobin.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses, Institute of Legal Medicine, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giraud
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Saudan
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baume
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Avois
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mangin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saugy
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion; D004300:Doping in Sports / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004921:Erythropoietin / Q000097:blood* / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D013177:Sports; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D004921:Erythropoietin