STEVIA LEAF POWDER AND CLOVE OIL AS TASTE MASKING SUBSTANCES IN THE FORMULATION OF ONDANSETRON ORO DISPERSIBLE TABLETS

Taste is an important factor that determines the palatibility of oral dosage form and patient compliance. Many active pharmaceutical ingredients are bitter and require some form of taste masking to yield palatable dosage forms. In the present study, an attempt has been made to prepare oro dispersible tablets of Ondansetron using stevia leaf powder and clove oil as natural taste masking substances. Stevia is a natural sweetener and is gaining popularity in India as a healthy alternative t o artificial sweeteners. Clove oil, due to its mild local anesthetic effect, suppresses slight bitter after taste of the drug. The tablets were prepared by direct compression method. The flow ability of the powder blend was determined by angle of repose, bulk density, tapped density, Carr’s index and Hausner ratio parameters. The prepared tablets were evaluated by in vivo disintegration time and taste, in vitro wetting time and dissolution studies. The precompression parameters showed that stevia leaf powder improved the flow property whereas clove oil decreased the flow property. The prominent peaks of pure drug were also observed in Formulation F5 which indicated that there was no interaction between drug and excipients. Tablets of F5, containing both stevia leaf powder and clove oil, were tasteless initially, but tasted sweet later. The results of in vivo taste evaluation indicated successful taste masking of ondansetron.