Blood doping in sports is prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). To find a possible biomarker for the detection of blood doping, we investigated the changes in blood stored in CPDA-1 blood bags of eight healthy subjects who donated one unit of blood. Aliquots were taken on days 0, 14, and 35. Platelet-free plasma was prepared and stored at -80°C until analysis on a flow cytometer dedicated for the analysis of microparticles (MPs). Changes in the number of red blood cell (RBC) -MPs were highly significant (p < 0.0001) with a mean of 219 (10^3/μL) on day 0 changing to 23 120 (10^3/μL) on day 14 and 29 310 (10^3/μL) on day 35. We conclude that RBC-MPs seem to be a promising biomarker for doping control but confirmation by a transfusion study is necessary.
Keywords: autologous; blood; doping; microparticles; transfusion.
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