CHRIS UHLMANN: For people with failing kidneys, being hooked up to a dialysis machine for hours each week is a challenging and often depressing experience.
But a Melbourne conference has heard a new device being trialled in the United States may release patients from that routine.
It's being described as an "artificial kidney belt" and allows people to keep mobile while their blood is being cleaned of toxins.
Kidney Health Australia's medical director Tim Mathew explained it to Samantha Donovan.
TIM MATHEW: Well, it looks like a number of little boxes and connections, a lot of combinations of pumps and pipes and filters, quite complex. But then of course they wrap it up under a cover so from the outside it just looks like a, sort of an ordinary box about 12 inches by four inches, something of that sort.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: And would this mean that someone could get off a dialysis machine, not have to go to hospital, and live a relatively normal life?
TIM MATHEW: Well, the vision is that one would wear this ideally 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and would not have then to go and sit on a chair in an ordinary dialysis unit every second day for five hours; and that yes, you'd get on with life. You'd be able to drive and move and work. The current devices strap around the waist and are small enough and light enough to let you get on and do things.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: What difference would it make to the lives of people who need dialysis?
TIM MATHEW: Oh, I think the difference would be huge. The current dialysis approach is however you do it, quite complicated and involve a big investment of time and complexity by the patient and their family.
I think it would actually change the name of the game in dialysis and it would, I would think depending on how it was all costed, it would probably save money.
It gets away from the need for any staff, it gets away from the need for fixed buildings and machines and things like that. So there's potential I think for both improvement of life and saving cost.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: How confident are the experts who've spoken at the conference in Melbourne that this human trial that's getting underway may actually lead to the device being approved and we may see it in the market?
TIM MATHEW: I think there's what I'd call cautious optimism. There's been work going on for the wearable kidney with the current concepts for something like 10 or 15 years. They've now got to the stage where the American authorities have approved the trial, which is a significant step in terms of safety and innovation. One would have to be optimistic.
CHRIS UHLMANN: And that is Kidney Health Australia's associate professor Tim Mathew speaking with Samantha Donovan.