Federico Ponzetto

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Azienda Ospedaliera Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino

Context: Detection of endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids (EAAS), like testosterone (T), as doping agents has been improved with the launch of the Steroidal Module of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) in urine samples. Objective: To target doping practices with EAAS, particularly in individuals with low level of biomarkers excreted in ur...

Anti-doping rule violations related to the abuse of endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids can be currently discovered by the urinary steroidal module of Athlete Biological Passport. Since this powerful tool is still subjected to some limitations due to various confounding factors altering the steroid profile, alternative strategies have been cons...

Aim: Quantification of testosterone (T) and 5α-dihydrotestosterone serum concentrations proved to be an efficient alternative to urinary steroid profiling for the detection of T doping. In this context, additional serum markers could be discovered by exploratory untargeted steroidomics studies. Results: Endogenous steroid metabolites were monitored...

Recently, steroid hormones quantification in blood showed a promising ability to detect testosterone doping and interesting complementarities with the urinary module of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). In this work, an ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) method was developed for the quantif...

The detection of testosterone abuse in sports is routinely achieved through the 'steroidal module' of the Athlete Biological Passport by GC-MS(/MS) quantification of selected endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids (EAAS) from athletes' urines. To overcome some limitations of the "urinary steroid profile" such as the presence of confounding factors...

Background Cortisol and its primary metabolite, cortisone, play key roles in managing stress responses and maintaining balance via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Traditional immunoassays, often hindered by cross-reactivity, can yield inaccurate results. This study introduces a novel dilute-and-shoot using liquid chromatography coupled wit...

Biochemical confirmation of ovulation typically involves measuring serum progester-one levels during the mid-luteal phase. Alternatively, this information could be obtained by monitoring urinary excretion of conjugated metabolites of ovarian ste-roids such as pregnanediol 3-glucuronide (PDG) using immunoassay techniques that have methodological lim...

Background Volumetric Absorptive Microsampling (VAMS) is emerging as a valuable technique in the collection of dried biological specimens, offering a potential alternative to traditional sampling methods. The objective of this study was to assess the suitability of 30 μL VAMS for the measurement of endogenous steroid hormones. Methods A novel LC-M...

Background: the simultaneous monitoring of dexamethasone and cortisol serum concentrations by LC-MS/MS has recently proven to effectively increase the diagnostic performance of overnight dexamethasone suppression in comparison to cortisol immunometric measurement performed in the majority of clinical biochemistry laboratories. Methods: an in-house...

Background The systematic use of confirmatory tests in the diagnosis of primary aldosteronism (PA) increases costs, risks and complexity to the diagnostic work-up. In light of this, some authors proposed aldosterone-to-renin (ARR) cut-offs and/or integrated flow-charts to avoid this step. Patients with resistant hypertension (RH), however, are char...

Context: Adrenal venous sampling (AVS) is the gold standard procedure for subtype diagnosis in patients with primary aldosteronism (PA). Cortisol is usually adopted for the normalization of aldosterone levels in peripheral and adrenal samples. However, asymmetrical cortisol secretion can potentially affect the lateralization index, leading to subt...

Introduction In type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the antidiuretic system participates in the adaptation to osmotic diuresis further increasing urinary osmolality by reducing the electrolyte-free water clearance. Sodium glucose co-transporter type 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) emphasize this mechanism, promoting persistent glycosuria and natriuresis, but al...

The simultaneous measurement of dexamethasone and cortisol has proven the ability to increase the diagnostic performance of the overnight dexamethasone-suppression test. Furthermore, the therapeutic drug monitoring of administered corticosteroid drugs could represent a crucial tool for investigating unexpected variations of steroid hormones’ circul...

Several studies argued that cardiovascular evaluation of patients with nonfunctioning adrenal incidentaloma is of particular importance. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the possibility of stratifying the cardiometabolic risk using metanephrine levels in this setting of patients. A retrospective cross-sectional study was designed, collecting data of...

Recent studies revealed major concerns related to the accuracy of widely used clinical assays for aldosterone and renin, fueling the need for alternative and more robust bio-analytical solutions for assessment of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone-System (RAAS) in clinical samples. RAAS Triple-A profiling is a high-throughput mass-spectrometry based...

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a pathological condition characterized by an excessive aldosterone secretion; once thought to be rare, PA is now recognized as the most common cause of secondary hypertension. Its prevalence increases with the severity of hypertension, reaching up to 29.1% in patients with resistant hypertension (RH). Both PA and RH ar...

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) may affect testicles. Lower testosterone levels have been associated with worse clinical outcomes and higher mortality. Our objective was to evaluate the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis of men admitted with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and its link with the pneumonia-treatmen...

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common cause of secondary hypertension. A growing body of evidence has suggested that, beyond its well-known effects on blood pressure and electrolyte balance, aldosterone excess can exert pro-inflammatory, pro-oxidant and pro-fibrotic effects on the kidney, blood vessels and heart, leading to potentially harm...

The measurement of endogenous steroid hormones’ blood concentrations represents one of the areas of growing interest in the anti-doping community as regards the detection of endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids (EAAS) doping. Although different research groups have already developed analytical method for steroid measurements in blood matrix, the...

Total Value of Ownership (TVO) and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) analysis are novel tools capable of monitoring and analyzing industrial processes by assessing the efficiency of the entire instrumental equipment and calculating instrument capacity utilization. Such integrated analysis, measuring quality indicators of the testing process, co...

Purpose: International guidelines recommend salivary cortisol for the diagnosis of Cushing's syndrome. Despite mass spectrometry-based assays are considered the analytical gold-standard, there is still the need to define reference intervals and diagnostic accuracy of such methodology. Methods: 100 healthy volunteers and 50 consecutive patients w...

Aim: Quantitative endogenous steroid profiling in blood appears as a complementary approach to the urinary module of the World Anti-Doping Agency's Athlete Biological Passport Steroidal Module for the detection of testosterone doping. To refine this approach further, a UHPLC–MS/MS method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 14 free a...

Since 2014, testosterone doping can be targeted by the Steroidal Module of the Athlete Biological Passport. The steroidal module consists of the longitudinal monitoring of five ratios between urinary concentrations of endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids, measured by GC-MS. Although this longitudinal approach improved T doping detection capabili...

Objectif Présenter les stratégies analytiques courantes et futures qui sont employées dans les laboratoires antidopage pour la détection de substances et méthodes interdites dans le sport par l’Agence mondiale antidopage (AMA). Méthodes Une analyse antidopage d’échantillons biologiques (urine et sang) collectés en- et hors-compétition inclue l’ide...

The extraction and untargeted UHPLC-HRMS analysis of endogenous steroids in serum samples is described in this protocol. The employed full-scan acquisition mode provides the adequate sensitivity to highlight the main endogenous steroids present in blood, including mineralocorticoids, progestogens, and androgens. Technical aspects for both chromatog...

Over the past few years, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has focused its efforts on detecting not only small prohibited molecules, but also larger endogenous molecules such as hormones, in the view of implementing an endocrinological module in the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). In this chapter, the detection of two major types of hormones u...

This work describes the development of two methods involving supported liquid extraction (SLE) sample treatment followed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography or ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS and UHPSFC-MS/MS) for the screening of 43 anabolic agents in human urin...

This study shows the possibility offered by modern ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry in doping control analysis. A high throughput screening method was developed for 100 substances belonging to the challenging classes of anabolic agents, hormones and metabolic modulators, synthetic cann...