Supercritical fluid chromatography applied to the highly selective isolation of urinary steroid hormones prior to GC/MS analysis.

To assess the presence of prohibited anabolic substances used to promote growth in livestock, calf urine is the most relevant matrix. However, the sample preparation methods (required to remove unwanted matrix components and fractionate isobaric species that may be unresolved by gas chromatography- mass spectrometry GC/MS) are long and complex. In this context, semi-preparative supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) was considered to possibly simplify the sample preparation in reducing the number of procedures.