Study on Application of Electronic Tongue in the Evaluation of Taste-masking Effect of Pharmaceutical Formulation / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

ABSTRACT

Taste-masking effect of pharmaceutical formulation is important for the pharmacy worker to carry out study on taste-masking of pharmaceutical formulation. This study discussed the feasibility of electronic tongue in the evaluation of taste-masking effect. The berberine hydrochloride was used as model drug of bitterness. Sodium cycla-mate, 2,4-Dihydroxybenzoic acid and sodium cyclamate were used as bitterness inhibitors. Through detection of elec-tronic tongue, results from principal component analysis (PCA), and indexes such as distance of bitterness (D), dis-tance of bitterness reduction, inhibition rate (Ir), the determination was given on whether results from the bitterness inhibition of berberine hydrochloride and taste results from volunteers were the same. In addition, sodium cyclamate, which was the best bitterness inhibition, was made into different concentrations in order to optimize its using dosage. The data analysis results showed that in the berberine hydrochloride solution with the concentration of 0.005 mg/mL, the ranking order of the bitterness-masking efficiency was sodium cyclamate > 2,4-Dihydroxybenzoic acid > sodium acetate anhydrous. Along with the increasing concentration of sodium cyclamate, the taste-masking effect is better. However, after the concentration level of 0.2%, the change on taste-masking effect was relatively small. In the prac-tical work, the concentration of sodium cyclamate can be selected at the level of 0.2%. This experiment effect was the same as the human taste results. This study showed that the electronic tongue may be a useful tool in the evalua-tion of taste-masking efficiency to some extent.