Abstract

Undesirable taste is an important problem for patient compliance. Several oral pharmaceuticals and bulking agents have disagreeable and bitter-tasting components. The Bitter taste characteristics found in such systems have been eliminated or minimized by the development of numerous formulations with improved performance and acceptability especially in children and elderly patient. This review is mainly concerned with the bitter-masking techniques published in peer-reviewed journals and will shed light on different methods of masking undesirable taste of the drugs, and their pharmaceutical applications. Hence, nearly no reference will be made to the techniques published as patent applications.

Keywords: Bitter compounds, taste masking, sweeteners, taste suppressant, coating techniques, polymers.