Abstract:Objective:To study the correlation between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome types and liver function in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis (AC). Methods:The clinical data of 163 cases of AC patients were retrospectively analyzed. According to different syndrome types,they were divided into the liver qi depression syndrome group,the damp- heat accumulation syndrome group,the static blood obstructing the collaterals syndrome group, the liver- kidney yin deficiency syndrome group, and the spleen- kidney yang deficiency syndrome group, with 39, 54, 28, 27, and 15 cases in each group respectively. Liver function characteristics and Child- Turcotte- Pugh (CTP) classification were compared among all groups. Results:The main TCM syndrome type of AC was damp-heat accumulation syndrome. There were significant differences being found in the distribution of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST),glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT),albumin (Alb),prothrombin time (PT), cholinesterase (CHE),total bilirubin (TBil),total bile acid (TBA) and CTP classification in all syndrome types (P<0.05). Pairwise comparison showed that ALT in the damp- heat accumulation syndrome group was higher than those in the liver qi depression syndrome group and liver- kidney yin deficiency syndrome group,AST was higher than those in the static blood obstructing the collaterals syndrome group and the liver- kidney yin deficiency syndrome group, and GGT was higher than those in the other four groups, differences being significant (P<0.05). Alb in the liver qi depression syndrome group was higher than those in the liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome group and the spleen-kidney yang deficiency syndrome group, CHE was significantly higher than those in the damp- heat accumulation syndrome group and the spleenkidney yang deficiency syndrome group, and PT was lower than those in the damp- heat accumulation syndrome group,the liver- kidney yin deficiency syndrome group and the spleen- kidney yang deficiency syndrome group, differences being significant (P<0.05). TBil in the damp- heat accumulation syndrome group was higher than those in the liver qi depression syndrome group, the static blood obstructing the collaterals syndrome group and the liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome,and TBA was higher than that in the liver qi depression syndrome group, differences being significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: There is correlation between TCM syndrome types of AC patients and liver function and CTP classification. The evolution of the syndrome types is consistent with the increase of CTP grades, and the damp- heat accumulation syndrome is the main syndrome type of this disease.