To study the changes of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) syndrome in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD), so as to provide basic support for TCM intervention to the treatment of MHD.

80 cases of MHD patients were involved in this 12-month follow-up study. According to syndrome differentiation of TCM, observed and analysed those patients' symptom changes every 3 months.

In this study, The most frequently TCM syndromes of MHD patients whose dialysis age ≤ 1 years were yin deficiency of liver and kidney syndromes, followed by qi and yin deficiency syndromes. The most frequently TCM syndromes of MHD patients whose dialysis age >1 years were qi and yin deficiency syndromes, followed by yin and yang deficiency syndromes. Among the patients with different duration of dialysis, there were two groups of patients whose prognosis worse than the others, which were the patients with yang deficiency of spleen and kidney syndromes and yin and yang deficiency syndromes. Patients with yang deficiency of spleen and kidney syndromes whose dialysis age ≤ 1 years failed to change to other TCM syndromes, than they had a increased risk of death, as same as patients with yin and yang deficiency syndromes whose dialysis age >1 years.

TCM syndromes of MHD patients had special characteristics. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment can be initiatively taken, in order to improve survival and quality of life, and reduce the incidence of complications

Maintenance hemodialysis; Syndrome differentiation; Syndrome transformation