Objective To investigate the expressing patterns of serum inflammatory factors in patients with gastric cancer(GC)with different types of tongue fur.Methods GC patients with different types of longue fur(n=134)and non-GC subjects with different types of tongue fur(n=93)were chosen from clinic.The levels of serum inflammatory factors were detected by using electro-chemiluminescence immu-noassay(ECLIA),and correlation between types of tongue fur and serum inflammatory factors was ana-lyzed by using multi-factor association method.Results The levels of serum interleukin-17α(IL-17α) had significant difference in GC patients with different types of longue fur(P<0.05).The analysis on fur color showed that level of serum IL-17αwas 3.062 ng/L in GC patients with yellow fur and 3.982 ng/L in those with white fur(P<0.05).ROC analysis showed that the sensitivity was 72.7%,specific-ity was 91.3%and AUC(95% CI)was 0.639(0.539 -0.739)of serum IL-17αin distinguishing white fur and yellow fur,and cutoff value was 6.033 ng/L.The similar tendency was identified in non-GC subjects.The correlation analysis showed that there were 20 serum inflammatory factors with signifi-cant positive correlation in GC patients with the same types of tongue fur,and significant negative correla-tion in GC patients with different types of tongue fur.Conclusion The level of IL-17αcan significantly distinguish white tongue fur and yellow tongue fur.The white-yellow tongue fur and thin-thick tongue fur may reflect adverse inflammatory status in GC patients.