Abstract
Objective:
To rate the perception of taste, texture, smell, and aftertaste of 13 commonly prescribed liquid medications, including four new drugs: Zithromax, Cedax, Ceftin, and Biaxin.
Design:
Each category was scored on a scale of 1 to 5 by 30 volunteers in a blinded study. The order in which the drugs were sampled was randomized for 15 of the participants. The order was reversed for the remaining 15 participants. The drugs used in the study were Amoxil (amoxicillin), Biaxin (clarithromycin), Ceclor (cefaclor), Cedax (Ceftibuten), Ceftin (cefuroxime), Cefzil (cefprozil), Dynapen (dicloxacillin), Keflex (cephalexin), Suprax (Cefixime), Trimox (amoxicillin), Vantin (Cefpodoxime), VeeTids (penicillin VK), and Zithromax (azithromycin).
Setting:
A 537-bed US Army teaching hospital.
Participants:
Participants included 30 healthy adult volunteers from the Departments of Pediatrics, Nursing, and Pharmacy.
Main Outcome Measures:
Drugs received cumulative scores in each category as well as an overall total score ranking. The data were analyzed by using one-way ANOVA for repeated measures with a post hoc Duncan's multiple-range test to determine significant differences between individual means. The level of significance was set at a p value of 0.05 or less.
Results:
Overall, Trimox was better than all other drugs tested except Suprax; Dynapen was inferior to all except Biaxin and VeeTids. Zithromax scored higher than Biaxin in the texture, taste, and overall categories. Biaxin scored lower than all other drugs tested in the texture category. Ceftin was better than Cedax in the smell category, but Cedax was superior to Ceftin in the texture, taste, aftertaste, and overall categories.
Conclusions:
All of the new drugs tested were significantly different from each other (Cedax > Zithromax > Ceftin > Biaxin).
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