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  5. Palatability Evaluations of Doxycycline Solid Dosage Tablets Ground and Mixed in Food or Drinks
  1. Bioterrorism and Drug Preparedness

Palatability Evaluations of Doxycycline Solid Dosage Tablets Ground and Mixed in Food or Drinks

Lawrence X. Yu1, Agnes Nguyenpho1, Rosemary Roberts1, Stella G. Machado1, Donald J. Schuirmann1, Charles Anello1, and Ajaz S. Hussain1. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857. 

1Opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the FDA. 

ABSTRACT

Objective

To evaluate the hypothesis that the doxycycline tablet, once ground and mixed with appropriate food or drinks, could be taken orally with reasonable palatability. 

Methods 

Twenty healthy Food and Drug Administration staff completed the taste study in a blind fashion. The taste and aftertaste of doxycycline added to each of the following preparations were evaluated: water (negative control), apple juice with table sugar, low fat milk, low fat chocolate milk, regular chocolate milk, chocolate pudding, grape jelly, strawberry jelly, yogurt with cherry flavor, and simple syrup with FlavoRx sour apple flavor (positive control). 

Results 

Taste ranking of all ten preparations, highest to lowest, was as follows: chocolate pudding, chocolate milk, low fat chocolate milk, simple syrup with sour apple flavor, apple juice with table sugar, low fat milk, strawberry jelly, yogurt with cherry flavor, grape jelly, and water. The preparations with chocolate pudding, chocolate milk, low fat chocolate milk, simple syrup with sour apple flavor, apple juice with table sugar, and low fat milk have acceptable taste and palatability. 

Conclusions 

The results from this study confirm our hypothesis that the doxycycline tablet, once ground and mixed with foods or drinks, can have acceptable palatability. It appears that chocolate and milk have high capacity to mask the bitterness while jellies and yogurt have little capacity to cover the bitterness of doxycycline.

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