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.