**Author details**

Azam Bolhassani\* , Afshin Khavari and Zahra Orafa

\*Address all correspondence to: azam.bolhassani@yahoo.com; A\_bolhasani@pasteur.ac.ir

Department of Hepatitis and AIDs, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

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**Chapter 12**

**Prodrugs for Masking the Bitter Taste of Drugs**

The palatability of the active ingredient of a drug is a significant obstacle in developing a patient friendly dosage form. Organoleptic properties, such as taste, are an important factor when selecting a certain drug from the generic products available in the market that have the same active ingredient. It is a key issue for doctors and pharmacists administering the drugs and particularly for the pediatric and geriatric populations. Nowadays, pharmaceutical companies are recognizing the importance of taste masking and a significant number of

The word "medicine" for a child is considered a bad thing to administer because of its aversive taste. Medicines dissolve in saliva and bind to taste receptors on the tongue giving a bitter, sweet, salty, sour, or umami sensation. Sweet and sour taste receptors are concentrated on the tip and lateral borders of the tongue respectively. Bitter taste is sensed by the receptors on the posterior part of the tongue and umami taste receptors are located all over the tongue. A short period after birth, infants reject bitter tastes and prefer sweet and umami tastes[1]. Children have larger number of taste buds than adults which are responsible for sensitivity toward taste. These taste buds regenerate every two weeks. Taste becomes altered as a function of the aging process, which explains why most children find certain flavors to be too strong when adults do not. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that compliance in children is as low as 53%, indicating that children frequently fail to take medications properly. Noncompliance can lead to: (1)persistent symptoms, (2) need for additional doctor visits or even hospitaliza‐ tions, (3) worsening of condition, (4) need for additional medications, (5) increased healthcare costs and (6) development of drug-resistant organisms in cases of infectious diseases [2].

In mammals, taste buds are groups of 30-100 individual elongated "neuroepithelial" cells which are often embedded in special structure in the surrounding epithelium known as papillae. Just below the taste bud apex, taste cells are joined by tight junctional complexes that prevent gaps

> © 2014 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

techniques have been developed for concealing the objectionable taste [1].

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Rafik Karaman

**1. Introduction**

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/58404

