Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the risk factors for emergency hospitalization in Japanese nursing home residents.

Methods: Our retrospective cohort study included 170 nursing home residents who had stayed in two nursing homes in Saitama for more than one year by May 1, 2013. The association between emergency hospitalization within one year and 17 factors was examined initially by univariate analysis. Putative factors with P-values <0.05 on univariate analysis were considered in the multivariate analysis.

Results: A total of 70 (41.2%) of 170 nursing home residents were hospitalized emergently at least once within one year. In a logistic regression model, diagnosis of chronic heart failure (OR: 5.73, 95%CI: 1.37-23.84), presence of a decubitus ulcer (OR: 16.70, 95%CI: 1.89-147.41), and 5% loss of body weight over a one-year interval (OR: 2.47, 95%CI: 1.07-5.68) were associated with emergency hospitalization.

Conclusion: Diagnosis of chronic heart failure, presence of a decubitus ulcer, and a 5% loss of body weight over a one-year interval were risk factors for emergency hospitalization in Japanese nursing home residents.

AIMTo isolate and transplant germ cells from adult mouse testes for transplantation.

METHODSIn order to distinguish transplanted cells from endogenous cells of recipients, donor transgenic mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) were used. Germ cells were collected from the donors at 10-12 weeks of age and spermatogonia were concentrated by percoll fractionation and transplanted into recipient seminiferous tubules that had been previously treated with busulfan at 5 weeks of age to remove the endogenous spermatogenic cells.

RESULTSTwenty weeks after the transplantation, a wide spread GFP signal was observed in the recipient seminiferous tubules. The presence of spermatogenesis and spermatozoa was confirmed in sections of 12 out of 14 testes transplanted (86 %). However, when germ cells were transplanted without concentration the success rate was zero (0/9).

CONCLUSIONGerm cells from adult mouse testes can be successfully transplanted into recipient seminiferous tubules if the cell population is rich in spermatogonia and the percoll fractionation is useful in obtaining such a cell population.

Animals ; Cell Fractionation ; Green Fluorescent Proteins ; Luminescent Proteins ; genetics ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Seminiferous Tubules ; cytology ; physiology ; Spermatogenesis ; physiology ; Spermatogonia ; physiology ; transplantation ; Testis ; cytology