How is Steroid Testing Conducted?

Steroid testing is done with a sample of a person's blood, urine, or hair that can be checked for the presence of steroids and byproducts indicative of recent steroid use. This may be done in a lab, where the facility may also offer a panel testing for other compounds of interest. It is also possible to use home kits for instant results if a quick reference is desired. These kits tend to be less reliable than laboratory results, and it may be necessary to repeat the test if there are particular doubts or concerns.

There are a number of reasons to conduct steroid testing. Levels of steroid hormones in a patient's body may provide important information about a medical condition or a patient's response to treatment. When steroids are necessary for medical treatment, the doctor wants to monitor their levels to make sure the patient is getting an appropriate dosage. Other testing looks specifically for anabolic steroids, associated with performance enhancement in athletes. People who take these drugs can develop advantages over their peers, and many sporting organizations prohibit the use of anabolic steroids in athletes.

For professional athletes and Olympians, steroid testing usually occurs multiple times a year and at random. The goal is to prevent steroid use by making it clear that athletes never know when they will be tested, and therefore cannot afford to start a course of anabolic steroids. In this testing, the athlete is usually carefully supervised to make sure the blood, urine, or hair really comes from her, and the material is sent to a lab for testing. The lab can use tools like mass spectrometry to identify the presence of steroids and will issue a report detailing the findings.

Amateur athletes are usually not subject to such stringent testing. Some programs require athletes to pee into cups and submit them for testing to a laboratory. Other athletes may receive steroid testing with a home test kit, where a coach or other official asks for a sample and uses dipsticks and other tools to quickly detect steroids. The reduction in accuracy with this testing is generally deemed acceptable for amateur athletics because the concerns and risks are lower; less is at stake with a high school football team than with professionals, for example.

Errors are possible with steroid testing. There may be a false negative, where the testing misses a compound because of low concentrations. Negatives can also occur when a test does not check for a given compound, or cannot test for it reliably. False positives may happen as well. In the event of a positive result, technicians may repeat the test with the original sample and can also request a fresh sample to see if the results are the same. The goal is to avoid falsely accusing someone of steroid use. In athletics, accusations about steroids can damage a career, and labs are very careful about the handling of samples and test data.