Career
Millar formed the Texas-based company in 1969 to develop state-of-the-art catheter-tip technology for measuring physiological parameters in research and clinical applications. Today, the company has over 100 employees and is marketing its products throughout the world. Millar catheters have come to represent the “gold standard” for accurate measurement of blood pressure, flow and volume in humans, and have become essential for acquisition of accurate hemodynamic data in assessment of pediatric and adult cardiovascular function.
Measurement of pressure elsewhere in the body has become essential for treatment of debilitating and life-threatening conditions.
Intracranial pressure ( International Center of Photography) measurement in cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has resulted in rapid treatment in emergency rooms and a dramatic increase in the number of patients surviving such injuries. Millar micromanometers (Leslie A. Geddes(1984).
Cardiovascular Devices & Their Applications, pp. 46–47), are used in catheter-tip transducers such as the Codman Micro Sensor for measurement of International Center of Photography. Millar catheters are cited in well over two thousand articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Heart Association journals and American Journal of Physiology.
McDonald"s Blood Flow in Arteries: Theoretical, Experimental and Clinical Principles, Sixth Edition by Nichols, O"Rourke and Vlachopoulos lists numerous cases in which Millar catheters have yielded information about the human circulatory system that was not available by any other technology.
The heart of the Millar pressure-tip transducer is the piezoresistive effect pressure sensor. Measuring pressure at the source delivers a high-fidelity signal without the disadvantages of fluid-filled catheters. Huntly Millar"s contributions to the non-invasive measurement of pulse pressure are well known.
Michael F. O"Rourke credits Millar with the development of an applanation tonometer with the accuracy to record pulse pressure wave fluctuations when the surface of an artery is flattened.
These catheter-tipped manometers made possible depiction of the changes in pulse pressure waveforms with age. Millar was born in Montreal, Canada in 1927 and emigrated to the United States. in 1954.
He resides in Houston, Texas as a permanent resident alien. Millar holds a Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University and an Master of Science
(physics) from the University of Houston.
He served as Visiting Professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine from 1976 to 1995. He holds 28 United States patents.
