Portable dialysis machines have been recently approved by the FDA. Currently, people have to go to dialysis centers several times per week. If at-home dialysis takes off, many lives of those with kidney failure will change:

When Karen Everts wants to go camping, kidney failure no longer slows her down: She simply rolls the first portable hemodialysis machine out of her kitchen and into her motor home, ready to hook up for two hours each morning.

Most of the 400,000 Americans with failed kidneys stay alive by getting their blood cleaned at dialysis centers three times a week. Everts is at the forefront of a movement to get more of them treated at home - not just for convenience, but so they can undergo dialysis every day.

("New machines offer kidney dialysis at home", AP, MSNBC, Jul.11; Photo via NxStage)