Pretreatment of different biological matrices for exogenous testosterone analysis: a review

AbstractExogenous testosterone presence has been monitored mainly in urine and blood, however other biological matrices such as hair, nails and saliva samples can be used with successful for in vivo measurement. Chromatographic analysis requires pre-treatment to obtain free testosterone and its metabolites. Among the pre-treatment procedures, digestion, hydrolysis and solvolysis steps are used to reach the analytical purpose. Digestion assay is indicated for hair and nails samples. First, it is recommended decontamination step. After, alkaline solution (NaOH), organic solvents and other reagents can be added into the samples and incubated under determinated conditions for digestion step. Hydrolysis assay is recommended to urine and blood samples. Acid hydrolysis is able to cleave conjugated testosterone and its metabolites using HCl or H2SO4 solution with appropriate time and temperature. However, there are formation of interferents compounds, degradation of dihydroepiandrosterone and decrease of peak res...