OBJECTIVE:To determin β-carotene concentration in male healthy male volunteers serum after oral β-carotene chewing tablet or capsule and calculate its pharmacokinetics parameters, and compute relative bioavailability of chewing tablets. METHOD: A single oral dose of 150 mg β-carotene chewing tablet or capsule was given to 10 healthy male volunteers in a randomized cross study. A procedure of β-carotene concentration in serum quantitative determination by high performance liquid chromatography was described. RESULTS: The serum concentrationtime curves of the two preparations were fitted to a onecompartment model with a lag time in absorption. T_peakof tablet and capsule were (2.76±0.10)h and (2.69±0.14)h, t_1/2Ka (1.15±0.13)h and (1.21±0.15)h.AUC_{0h～24 h}(1 888.20±155.80)μg·h·L^-1and (1 536.27±128.67)μg·h·L^-1, c_max(324.11±22.94)μg·L^-1and (258.21±19.11)μg·L^-1. The relative bioavailability of chewing tablets was (122.91±10.50)%. CONCLUSION: There was no significant difference in t_peakand t_1/2Ka parameters between the two preparations (P＞0.05). Great significant difference was found in AUC_0～24 and c_maxparameters. The relative bioavailability of the chewing tablets was biger than that of the capsule.