title: Relationship between adductor pollicis muscle thickness and subjective global assessment in a cardiac intensive care unit.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To verify the relationship between the adductor pollicis muscle thickness test and the subjective global assessment and to correlate it with other anthropometric methods.
  
  
  METHODS
  This observational cross-sectional study was conducted in the intensive care unit of a cardiology hospital in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The hospitalized patients underwent subjective global assessment and adductor pollicis muscle thickness tests on both hands, along with measurement of the right calf circumference. Laboratory parameters, length of stay, vital signs and electronic medical record data and tests were all collected.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study population included 83 patients, of whom 62% were men. The average age was 68.6 ± 12.5 years. The most common reason for hospitalization was acute myocardial infarction (34.9%), and the most common pathology was systolic blood pressure (63.9%), followed by diabetes mellitus (28.9%). According to subjective global assessment classifications, 62.7% of patients presented no nutritional risk, 20.5% were moderately malnourished and 16.9% were severely malnourished. Women had a higher nutritional risk, according to both the subjective global assessment and the adductor pollicis muscle thickness test, the cutoff for which was < 6.5mm (54.8%; p = 0.001). The pathology presenting the greatest nutritional risk was congestive heart failure (p = 0.001). Evaluation of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve between adductor pollicis muscle thickness and subjective global assessment showed the accuracy of the former, with an area of 0.822.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adductor pollicis muscle thickness proved to be a good method for evaluating nutritional risk.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Cardiologia, Fundação Universitária de Cardiologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Fernanda Pickrodt
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Karst
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Cardiologia, Fundação Universitária de Cardiologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Renata Monteiro
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Vieira
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Cardiologia, Fundação Universitária de Cardiologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barbiero
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000886:Anthropometry; D001938:Brazil; D003325:Coronary Care Units; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D009752:Nutritional Status / Q000502:physiology*; D012372:ROC Curve; D012307:Risk Factors