To evaluate the clinical efficacy of Tanreqing in the treatment of thoracic surgery patients, and its effect on serum TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8 and other inflammatory cytokines. Methods:Ninety patients who had thoracic surgery in the hospital from February 2014 to December 2015 (postoperative lung cancer, 48 cases of esophageal cancer after 42 cases) were selected as research objects and randomly divided into two groups, with 45 cases in each group. The control group received conventional anti-infective western medicine treatment, while the observation group additionally took 20 mL Tanreqing injection treatment by intravenous injection, immediately after the surgery and treated for 7 days. The clinical efficacy of the two groups was observed. Changes in serum TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8 content before and after the treatment were tested by ELISA in the two groups. Results:After treatment, clinical efficacy of the observation group was much better than that of the control group and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Contents of WBC and neutrophil declined in both the two groups, showing statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Leukocytes and neutrophils decreased more significant in the observation group, indicated that the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The effective clearance of airway secretions and pulmonary infection rate of the observation group were superior to those of the control group, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8 levels in serum were decreased after the treatment in both groups, showing that the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). The declination in the observation group was more remarkable, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Conclusion:Tanreqing combined with anti-infective therapy immediately for patients who just had thoracic surgery is likely to be more effective in improving the clinical symptoms and may reduce the content of inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, etc. This indicated that Tanreqing may have the effect of suppressing body’s inflammatory response and improving clinical symptoms, which may be related to the inhibition to generation or release of inflammatory factors, such as TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8 and even entering serum, as well as the reduction of inflammatory cytokines serum levels. Its exact mechanism still needs to be further discussed.