Dr. Miklos Illyes: 1950 (Budapest)–2022 (Szekszard)

The Hungarian Society of Hypertension announces with deep sadness that Dr. Miklos Illyes passed away prematurely due to a longstanding severe and incurable disease on 17th October, 2022 at his age of 72.

Dr. Illyes was a distinguished Hungarian researcher who provided outstanding contributions on different aspects of hypertension and arterial function research.

1 Miklos Illyes, The Physician

At the beginning of his career, Miklos worked as a gynecologist and was interested in the ultrasonography of the uterine artery and placenta. Later, he joined Prof. Csaba Farsang and they edited and published the first Hungarian guidelines on the treatment of hypertension in pregnancy. Based on this new imaging method, he saved the lives of plenty of mothers and their babies.

2 Miklos Illyes, The Researcher and Scientist

More than 30 years ago, he created a portable blood pressure monitor with the ability to measure not only the day-time but night-time blood pressure of a patient; this was the first Hungarian ABPM (Meditech-ABPM). The 6th series of this device is used nationwide at hundreds of Hungarian clinics, outpatient departments and GP’s offices. As the result of the first experiences Prof. Farsang and Dr. Illyes organized the first Hungarian ABPM Symposium on 7th of December, 1991 which was followed by a second meeting 1 year later where the participants established the Hungarian Society of Hypertension. Miklos was elected the first Secretary General of the Society.

In the meantime, Dr. Illyes held his dissertation titled “The ultrasonography examination of fetal and placental circulation and its clinical implications” in 1987. His interest turned to telemedicine more than two decades before COVID-pandemic and established a telemedical hypertension system (TensioCare) based on analogous phone line. The “virtual hypertension clinic” based on the out-of-office (home) self-measured blood pressure readings provided a valuable help in better control of hypertension of thousands of patients and their GPs.

His academic career led him to become Associate Professor of Medicine at the Heart Institute, University of Pecs where the invasive validation of arteriograph was conducted. He and his working group published several international and Hungarian papers regarding his results.

3 Miklos Illyes, The Inventor and Businessman

According to the millions of telemedically collected BP values and pulse wave curves, he extended his research interests to the field of arterial pulse wave analysis and arterial stiffness. He developed the first upper-arm cuff oscillometric device to investigate the arterial function called arteriograph which was non-invasively and invasively validated in 2010 produced by his own manufacturing company, the Tensiomed Ltd.

4 Miklos Illyes, The President

Together with the first arteriograph-users, he established the Hungarian Society of Arterial Stiffness in 2006 which was the first national society on this field in Europe. He was the first president of the Hungarian Society and served it until his death. He organized several international and national meeting on arterial stiffness and made strong scientific and friendly relations and collaborations with the members and leaders of Artery Society intending several international collaborations on this field. He became the first Hungarian member of Artery and the Editorial Board of Artery Research. One of his colleagues and friends described his career and life with these words: “Miklos continuously sought for the new, the modern, the more up-to-date things. He was the pioneer of blood pressure monitoring in Hungary, the telemedical hypertension care and the non-invasive vascular screening.”

5 Miklos Illyes, The Wine-Maker

He moved to his favorite town, Szekszard a few decades ago where he bought a tiny vineyard and started to make wine. He became as successful winemaker as an inventor he was, and won a lot of gold medals with his ‘kadarka’, ‘bikaver’ and ‘cabernet franc’.

Rest in peace, Miklos—we keep you in our memories.

Bela Benczur Member of the Board of the Hungarian Society of Hypertension.