Abstract :
Oral administration of pharmaceutical is one of the most popular methods of drug delivery.
Acceptability of any dosage form are mainly depends over its taste i.e. Mouth feel drug molecules
interacts with taste receptor on the tongue to give bitter, sweet or salty taste sensation. When they
dissolve in saliva .This sensation of the taste is result of signal transduction from the receptor organ
for taste commonly known as taste buds and Palatability is an extremely important factor in ensuring
the likelihood that the recipients will intake the pharmaceuticals. A constant problem is in treatment
of patient is their inability or unwillingness to swallow solid dosage forming such as tablets especially
in children and the elderly. .In market, there are number of pharmaceutical preparation available in
which actives are bitter in taste. The improved palatability in these products has prompted the
development of numerous formulations, which improves performance and acceptability. So masking
of bitterness becomes essential. Previously the attitude of “Worse the taste of medicine, the better the
cure†was observed, but now-a-days several approaches of masking the bitter taste have been
developed. It include adding sugars, flavours, sweetness, use of lipoproteins, numbing taste buds,
granulations ,adsorptions, microencapsulation, multiple emulsion, prodrug and salts formulation,
inoculation and molecular complexes, solid dispersion, application of Ion Exchange Resins(IERs).
This article reviews the methodologies and approaches of taste masking taste masking techniques of
bitterness reduction and also reviews the various evaluation techniques such as Panel testing (human
subjects), Measurement of frog taste nerve responses, Multichannel taste sensor/ magic tongue,
Spectrophotometric evaluation/ D30‟s value method.
Keyword :
Taste masking, evaluation,