Combining Powder Formulations of Drugs with Food and Beverages to Improve Palatability

Abstract

The taste of medicines can significantly affect patient adherence. Pediatric patients often cannot take powder medicines because of their unpleasant taste. Therefore, patients' parents and health care professionals, including pharmacists, often combine medicines with food or beverages to make them easier for pediatric patients to consume because this can reduce their unpleasant taste. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the palatability of powder formulations of azithromycin and carbocysteine and explore their combination with food or beverages to improve palatability for pediatric patients. We quantitatively evaluated the palatability of powder formulations by performing the gustatory sensation test using the visual analog scale score. The gustatory sensation tests were performed on 16 healthy adult volunteers (age 23.0 2.6 years) and indicated that some food and beverages improved the palatability of the powder formulations of azithromycin and carbocysteine. The results of this study indicate that ice cream improves the palatability of azithromycin, while yogurt improves the palatability of carbocysteine. Moreover, the subjects recommended these same combinations for pediatric patients. This study suggests that some foods and beverages improve the palatability of powder formulations, thereby decreasing the possibility that pediatric patients will refuse medications because of their unpleasant taste.

Palatability Assessment of Carbocysteine Oral Solution Strawberry Taste Versus Carbocysteine Oral Solution Mint Taste: A Blinded Randomized Study

“…The results of this study indicated that carbocysteine oral solution strawberry taste was superior to mint preparation in taste and try-again preference, spitting out, and emotional valence. For carbocysteine medication, previous studies found that carbocysteine cough syrups were well tolerated in children over 2 years of age ( Cohen et al, 2017 ) and combining carbocysteine powder formulation with yogurt could improve the palatability of carbocysteine for children over 2 years old ( Tanaka et al, 2020b ). Few comparative studies illustrated the palatability of carbocysteine oral solution with flavor masked technique.…”

“…With the advancement in taste-modifying techniques in food and pharmaceutical industries, the assessment of palatability, typically done with in vivo and in vitro evaluations, is becoming increasingly important ( Forough et al, 2018 ). Several instruments and tools have been developed and applied for palatability assessment, such as a taste panel ( Truong et al, 2021 ), visual analog scale ( Tanaka et al, 2020a ), facial hedonic scale ( Salman et al, 2018a ), and an electronic tongue ( Wang et al, 2021 ). However, existing methodology and standards used for pediatric product palatability assessment are still scarce, making robust and consistent product evaluations difficult.…”

Evaluating palatability in young children: a mini-review of relevant physiology and assessment techniques

“…Evaluation of drug palatability and patient acceptance has been done using both in vitro and in vivo evaluations and has become increasingly important ( 6 ). Several methods have been developed and applied for palatability assessment ( 9 ) which includes, visual analog scales ( 10 ), facial hedonic scales ( 11 ), use of an electronic tongue ( 12 ) and more recently, the use of facial recognition software ( 13 ). Despite these advancements, there appears to be no generally accepted “gold standard” method for palatability assessment in children that has been universally adopted by drug manufacturers or regulatory agencies.…”