Objective: The research is aimed at investigating the developing rule and the relationship between syndrome differentiation in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and clinical factors of gastric cancer, so that it can be helpful to the clinical work and indicating the prognosis.Methods: We collected the medical records and the information of four diagnostic methods of 325 cases of gastric cancer sufferers in the way of clinical epidemiological survey, and divided them into 6 syndromes including dysfunction of spleen, disharmony of liver and stomach, blood stagnation in stomach, yin deficiency of stomach, phlegm dampness stagnation and deficiency of both qi and blood. Then we used univariate analysis of variance, rank sum test and chi square test to analyse the relationship between syndrome differentiation and clinical-related factors such as age, gender, Karnofsky score and clinical stage, etc.Result: The syndrome of dysfunction of spleen plays the primary role in the disease. Disharmony of liver and stomach always happens in early stage of stomach cancer, usually more often in radical operation cases and less in metastasis ones. It also has a high proportion in female. Phlegm dampness stagnation and blood stagnation in stomach usually can be seen in middle or advanced stage of the disease, which have lower Karnofsky score. Deficiency of both qi and blood is the syndrome of stomach cancer in advanced stage, which results in lower living quality, and with high rate of relapse and metastasis. Syndrome of yin deficiency of stomach has lower proportion in stomach cancer cases, and the clinical-related factors have low influence on it.Conclusion: Syndrome in TCM of gastric cancer is relevant to some clinical factors and varies in progress.

Key words: gastric cancer, traditional Chinese medicine, clinical factor, univariate analysis