The baseline medical history, physical examination, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation score II and III (APACHE) were recorded for all patients. All data were collected by a single physician. The APACHE II and III scores were gathered using the method presented by Knaus. The dominant hand APM thickness (as reported by the patient, or the relative) was assessed by Caliper (Vogel, Germany) in the emergency room or at the time of the ICU admission. To estimate weight for the APM thickness, multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relation between mortality and the APM thickness while controlling for other physiologic variables (12 physiologic variables for APACHE II and 18 physiologic variables for APACHE III).The area under the receiver-operating curves (ROC curve) to predict mortality was used to compare APACHE II, APACHE III, APACHE II- APM and APACHE III- APM systems.