Damage to health and fatalities from doping

The possibilities of misusing doping substances in sports, continuously increases with the development of new medicinal substances. Undesirable effects of anabolic steroids and stimulants have been well investigated and undesirable side effects related to peptide hormones are known from patients. Case reports about doping-induced deaths have described the findings of autopsies, which indicated the involvement of certain classes of substances and drugs. Nevertheless, the increasing abuse of combinations of different compounds complicates the appraisal of side effects. Therefore, evaluation of autopsy results after deaths related to doping has become a complex task and alterations in tissues and organs are often difficult to attribute to a certain class of administered substances.