Adductor pollicis muscle thickness in the nutritional assessment of hospitalized patients

Introduction: The Thickness of the Adductor Pollicis Muscle (TAPM) has been suggested as a promising measure in the diagnosis of malnutrition in several clinical conditions. Objective: To evaluate the applicability of the TAPM and correlate it with other methods of nutritional assessment in hospitalized patients. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study, conducted in March 2020, with adult and elderly patients admitted to a public hospital in Jequie-Bahia. Patients were submitted to nutritional status assessment through Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) and anthropometric measurements. The TAPM was measured in both hands. Statistical analyzes were performed in SPSS (R) considering statistically significant values of p <0.05. Results: 15 patients with a mean age of 65.2 +/- 16.3 years were evaluated. The most frequent reason for hospitalization was injuries and wounds (33.3%). The average hospital stay was 15.7 +/- 11.0 days and 40% of the patients were bedridden. As for the nutritional assessment, it was observed that 53.3% of the patients were malnourished by the Body Mass Index, a result superior to that of the SGA (40%). As for the TAPM of the non-dominant hand, all patients were malnourished. There was a positive correlation between the TAPM of the non-dominant hand with weight, muscle circumference of the arm and calf circumference, and a negative correlation with the SGA. The TAPM of the dominant hand did not correlate with the other variables analyzed. Conclusion: The TAPM correlated with measures of the muscular compartment and with the SGA, reinforcing its inclusion in the nutritional assessment process in hospitalized patients.