A Comparative Study of Two Different Taste Masking Approaches for Taste Masking of Azithromycin

Abstract

Objective: Azithromycin is a BCS Class II drug having a poor water solubility and bitter taste, which leads to
poor patient compliance, especially in paediatric and geriatric patients. Thus in the present work taste masking was
done using two methods, solid dispersion (SD) and complexation using ion exchange resin and the two methods
were compared with respect to their efficiency of taste masking. Methodology: In this research work, SDs were
prepared by solvent evaporation method using ethanol as a solvent. Furthermore, drug resin complex containing
indion 234, a weak cation exchange resin was prepared by batch method. Both, SDs and drug resin complexes were
evaluated by FTIR, SEM, PXRD, and DSC studies and with respect to their micromeritic properties, solubility,
drug content, dissolution, and taste evaluation. Results and Discussion: The study showed that both the SDs as
well as drug resin complex showed improvement in taste as well as physicochemical properties, The drug content
and % drug release of the optimized batch prepared by SD method was found to be more that is 92.56 ± 0.75%
and 96.77%, respectively for SD5 (1:0.75) as compared to the optimized batch prepared by the ion exchange resin
that is 67.52 ± 0.51% and 75.25% for DRC4 (1:4).Taste evaluation studies also revealed a better taste masking with
SD as compared to drug resin complex. Thus, it can be concluded that due to its versatile utility SD method was
found to be the best and more efficient as compared to the ion exchange resin method for taste making of bitter
tasting drugs.