Objective To explore the characteristics of incidence and distribution of traditional Chinese medicine（ TCM） syndromes in patients with gastric carcinoma in real world. Methods Information of 20989 in-patients with gastric carcinoma was collected from 20 Class A Tertiary General Hospitals national wide from January

2008 to December

2010. After standardization of the data on diagnosis and TCM differentiation

general information and TCM syndromes were extracted to do frequency statistics and to make radar charts to analyze the relationship between disease incidence

time of death and solar terms. Results In 20 989 patients with gastric carcinoma

there were 15 144 males（ 75. 13%）

5 012 females（ 24. 87%）

and 833 cases lack of gender records. The median age was 60.There were 1 463 patients aged 18 to 44

5 464 aged 45 to 59

5 768 patients aged 60 to 74

1 809 aged 75 to 89

and6 485 cases lack of age records. There were 338 cases recorded with main syndromes when discharged. 42. 90% of those syndromes were deficiency syndromes

including deficiency in spleen and stomach

deficiency of qi and yin

deficiency of qi and blood

stomach heat harming yin; 51. 19% were excess syndromes

including blood stasis and toxin stagnation

disharmony between liver and stomach

phlegm and dampness stagnation; and 5. 91% were other syndromes. Among patients aged or younger than 40

one was with deficiency syndrome（ 11. 11%） and 8 with excess syndrome（ 88. 89%）; in patients aged from 41 to 60

64 were with deficiency syndrome（ 61. 54%） and 40 with excess syndrome（ 38. 46%）; in patients over 60 years old

108 were with deficiency syndrome（ 52. 68%） and 97 with excess syndrome（ 47. 32%）. The radar chart of patient admission time and death time showed that the number of admission in gastric cancer patients in autumn and winter were more than that in spring and summer. More deaths occurred in summer than in winter. In the 12 time periods of a day

deaths significantly increased during the periods from 9 am to 11 am and from 3 pm to 5 pm. Conclusion Patients with gastric carcinoma are mainly middle-aged and male. Young patients are mainly with excess syndromes

while elderly with deficiency syndromes. Hospitalization of patients with gastric carcinoma increases in autumn and winter. Deaths in patients increase in summer and when the spleen meridian or bladder meridian circulates.