Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT, cilt.197, sa.12, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Despite causing public health and safety problems, Methenolone (MTN) and the nandrolone metabolite 19-norandrosterone (19-NA) are among the most commonly encountered anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) in performance- and image-enhancing drug (PIED) use, and their detection in wastewater provides valuable insights into community-level consumption patterns. The collection of data on PIED use is typically facilitated by the administration of surveys designed to target specific demographics. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate the prevalence of PIED use using data obtained from surveys regarding doping use that cover only a specific group, such as athletes. Therefore, the current study employed a wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach to assess MTN and 19-NA consumption at the community level. The analytical method developed for the quantitative analysis of the nandrolone metabolites 19-NA and MTN in samples from eight selected wastewater sampling catchments in T & uuml;rkiye was validated according to ANSI/ASB Standard 036 Standard Practices for Method Validation in Forensic Toxicology. All samples were analyzed by solid-phase extraction (SPE) followed by a validated analytical method using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The nandrolone metabolite 19-NA was detected in the concentration range of 1.6 to 9.2 ng/L in only three of the eight cities analyzed. In these cities, the consumption of 19-NA was calculated to be within the range of 0.40-1.50 mg/day/1000 people. This study represents a pioneering achievement in the field of PIED substance analysis in T & uuml;rkiye, as it is the first to utilize WBE for this purpose, and the developed method could be used for environmental assessment and monitoring investigations.