Abstract： Objective： To observe the clinical effect of Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation combined with prednisone acetate on systemic lupus erythematosus(SLE) and its influence on cytokines. Methods： A total of 120 SLE patients were randomly divided into the control group and the observation group，60 patients in each group. The control group was treated with prednisone acetate，and the observation group was treated with decoction according to Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation based on the treatment of the control group. Both groups were treated for six months. Before and after treatment，the clinical effect，the adverse reactions，the changes of levels of interleukin-16(IL-16)，interleukin-17 (IL-17) and transforming growth factor- β(TGF-β) in serum in the two groups were observed and compared. Results：The total effective rate was 83.33% in the observation group and 63.33% in the control group，the difference being significant (P＜0.05). After treatment， the levels of IL- 16 and IL- 17 in serum in both groups were decreased when compared with those before treatment，and TGF-β levels were increased，differences being significant(P＜0.05)，and the improvement of the above three indexes was better in the observation group than in the control group(P＜0.05). The incidence of adverse reactions was 11.67% in the observation group and 16.67% in the control group，there being no significant difference(P＞ 0.05). Conclusion： TCM syndrome differentiation combined with prednisone acetate for SLE patients， can improve the curative effect and the levels of cytokines in serum，without increasing adverse reactions.