$re = '/IT1[^@]*EA[^@]*@(?:(?!@IT1).)*REF[^@]*BAR[^@]*@/m';
$str = 'IT1*1*EA*VN*ABC@SAC*X*500@REF*ZZ*OK@IT1*1*CS*VN*ABC@SAC*X*500@REF*ZZ*BAR@IT1*1*EA*VN*ABC@SAC*X*500@REF*ZZ*BAR@IT1*1*EA*VN*ABC@SAC*X*500@REF*ZZ*OK@';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php