Tasting cetirizine-based microspheres with an electronic tongue

•Microspheres containing API for the first time analyzed by electronic tongue.•Chemical image is influenced by coating agents used for microspheres preparation.•Taste masking and release properties (in vivo and in vitro study) are compared with electronic tongue results. Nowadays electronic tongues are used for the recognition of variety of samples, but most popular application area is pharmaceutical analysis, including mainly taste masking effects detection and estimation. However, it is noticeable, that among various pharmaceutical formulations still simple masking with the use of sweeteners plays the key role in such investigation. In this work we conduce electronic tongue study of novel drug delivery system—microspheres containing cetirizine. Microspheres prepared with the use of two coating agents with different drug to polymer ratio are applied for the observation of change in taste masking and release properties (in vivo and in vitro study) and these results are compared with changes in chemical images recorded by the developed electronic tongue system. High correlation of the electronic tongue results and “compromise scores” of human panel is presented.