2015 Volume 15 Issue 9 Pages 423-430
Many drugs have a bitter taste, which makes them difficult or unpleasant to take medicines for patients, giving rise to noncompliance and thus decreasing therapeutic efficacy. Especially, children, elder people and patients with dysphagia cannot swallow tablets, so powder and liquid formulations and orally disintegrating tablets are preferable as a dosage form for such peoples. However, bitter drugs in solution or dissolved rapidly in saliva from these preparations are directly contact with gustatory cells on tongue, evolving bitterness. Therefore, it is of great importance from a viewpoint of compliance to mask bitterness of the drugs in pharmaceutical fields. In general, physical barrier coating, chemical modification and sensory masking are employed as taste-masking techniques. Among chemical modifications, cyclodextrin (CyD) complexations provide an effective means for masking bitterness of drugs. CyDs are known to form inclusion complexes with various guest molecules in aqueous solution and in solid state and to alter physicochemical properties of the guests through the com plexation. Therefore, the CyD complexation is successfully utilized for improvement of pharmaceutical properties of drugs. This review is concerned with the current application of CyDs to the masking of bitterness and disgusting tastes of drugs and with the mechanism by which CyDs suppress the unpleasant taste. The present information will be useful in design of dosage forms and formulations of drugs with bitter/irritating tastes.
