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Expert list · Last reviewed April 17, 2026

Structural Heart Disease Specialists in Ohio

Top Ohio structural heart disease specialists for valve repair, TAVR, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy care, chosen for clinical depth and peer-reviewed impact.

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Ohio has a small group of structural heart disease specialists whose clinical depth and peer recognition place them among the most trusted in the country — here is where to start.

Structural heart disease covers problems with the heart's valves, walls, and chambers — things like a leaky mitral valve, a narrowed aortic valve, a hole between the chambers, or a thickened heart muscle. The specialists below all practice in the Cleveland area and work inside one of the largest valve and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy programs in the United States. They were chosen for their clinical focus, case volume, and published contributions to how these conditions are diagnosed and treated.

Deborah Kwon

Deborah Kwon, MD

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Kwon is a cardiac imaging specialist at Cleveland Clinic who focuses on pericardial disease and complex valve problems. Patients typically see her when a routine echocardiogram has not explained their symptoms and they need cardiac MRI to sort out whether the sac around the heart is inflamed, scarred, or squeezing the heart. Her work on pericardial imaging 14 helped define how teams decide between medication and surgery for recurrent pericarditis.

Samir Kapadia

Samir Kapadia, MD

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Kapadia chairs cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic and is one of the most experienced transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) operators in the country. He sees patients with severe aortic stenosis who are weighing a minimally invasive valve replacement, as well as people with mitral and tricuspid valve disease who may be candidates for catheter-based repair. His 2013 paper on leakage around a new TAVR valve 7 remains one of the most cited references teams use when counseling patients on the procedure.

Benico Barzilai

Benico Barzilai, MD

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Barzilai is a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic with a long track record in echocardiography and the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with valve and aortic disease. He is often involved when a patient with a calcified aorta is being considered for open heart surgery and the team needs to weigh stroke risk against the benefit of fixing a valve. His research on the atherosclerotic ascending aorta 1215 is still cited in cardiac surgery planning today.

Milind Desai

Milind Desai, MD

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Desai co-directs the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) center at Cleveland Clinic, one of the highest-volume programs in the world for this genetic heart muscle disease. Patients travel to him for second opinions on whether to start a new medication, proceed with septal myectomy surgery, or consider alcohol septal ablation. He was on the writing committee for the 2022 national guideline on diagnosing and evaluating HCM 19 and has contributed to the major consensus document on TAVR 20.

Serge Harb

Serge Harb, M.D.

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Harb is a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who focuses on mitral valve disease and the echocardiographic imaging that guides valve repair decisions. He sees patients with mitral regurgitation, mitral stenosis, and unexplained shortness of breath where the question is whether a valve is the real problem. His review of mitral valve disease 22 is a common starting reference for trainees, and his work on estimating filling pressure from ultrasound 2125 helps other cardiologists decide when a valve leak has started to strain the heart.

Brian Griffin

Brian Griffin, MD

Head of Cardiovascular Imaging, Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic

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Dr. Griffin heads cardiovascular imaging at Cleveland Clinic and practices across the Clinic's main campus, Hillcrest Hospital, and UH Westlake Health Center. He is a referral point for difficult valve questions — whether a narrowed aortic valve is truly severe, whether cancer treatment has harmed the heart, or whether a small mass seen on imaging is dangerous. He helped write the international echocardiography guidelines for grading valve stenosis 2629 that cardiologists around the world rely on.

What to look for in a structural heart specialist

  • Board certification in cardiovascular disease, with additional training in interventional or advanced imaging cardiology
  • Practice within a multidisciplinary valve or heart team that includes cardiac surgery
  • Annual volume in the specific procedure you may need (TAVR, MitraClip, septal myectomy, alcohol ablation)
  • Academic affiliation with a teaching hospital that publishes its outcomes
  • Whether they are accepting new patients and your insurance is in network
  • Access to cardiac MRI and advanced echocardiography for a full diagnostic workup

Questions to ask before your first appointment

  • How many patients with my condition do you treat each year?
  • How often does your team perform the procedure I may need, and what are your outcomes?
  • Will my case be reviewed by a valve or heart team, or only by one specialist?
  • What are the alternatives to the procedure you are recommending?
  • What imaging or testing will I need before we can decide on treatment?
  • If I need surgery, which surgeon would work with you on my case?

The bottom line

If you live in Ohio and have been told you have a valve problem, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or another structural heart issue, the cardiologists above are reasonable starting points for a specialist evaluation or second opinion. Ask your primary care doctor or general cardiologist for a referral, bring your most recent echocardiogram and any cardiac MRI or CT images, and be ready to discuss whether a heart team review is appropriate for your case.

Sources

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    Pericardial Delayed Hyperenhancement With CMR Imaging in Patients With Constrictive Pericarditis Undergoing Surgical Pericardiectomy — JACC. Cardiovascular imaging, 2011. DOI
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    Accuracy and Interobserver Concordance of Echocardiographic Assessment of Right Ventricular Size and Systolic Function: A Quality Control Exercise — Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 2012. DOI
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    Etanercept (Enbrel) administration for idiopathic pneumonia syndrome after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation — Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, 2002. DOI
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    Quantitative Pericardial Delayed Hyperenhancement Informs Clinical Course in Recurrent Pericarditis — JACC. Cardiovascular imaging, 2017. DOI
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    Validation of Global Longitudinal Strain and Strain Rate as Reliable Markers of Right Ventricular Dysfunction: Comparison with Cardiac Magnetic Resonance and Outcome — Journal of Cardiovascular Ultrasound, 2014. DOI
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    Tumor Necrosis Factor-α and Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptors in the Failing Human Heart — Circulation, 1996. DOI
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    Incidence, Predictors, and Outcomes of Aortic Regurgitation After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2013. DOI
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    Extent and Direction of Arterial Remodeling in Stable Versus Unstable Coronary Syndromes — Circulation, 2000. DOI
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    Statins, High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol, and Regression of Coronary Atherosclerosis — JAMA, 2007. DOI
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    High Prevalence of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Asymptomatic Teenagers and Young Adults — Circulation, 2001. DOI
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    Alterations in left ventricular structure and function in young healthy obese women — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2004. DOI
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    Management of the severely atherosclerotic ascending aorta during cardiac operations — Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 1992. DOI
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    On-line assessment of ventricular function by automatic boundary detection and ultrasonic backscatter imaging — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 1992. DOI
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    Strategy for the reduction of stroke incidence in cardiac surgical patients — The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 1993. DOI
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    Atherosclerosis of the ascending aorta. Prevalence and role as an independent predictor of cerebrovascular events in cardiac patients. — Stroke, 1994. DOI
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    The Role of Stress Echocardiography in Valvular Heart Disease: A Current Appraisal — Cardiology, 2017. DOI
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    Non-invasive detection of coronary inflammation using computed tomography and prediction of residual cardiovascular risk (the CRISP CT study): a post-hoc analysis of prospective outcome data — The Lancet, 2018. DOI
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    Swarm Learning for decentralized and confidential clinical machine learning — Nature, 2021. DOI
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    Diagnosis and Evaluation of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2022. DOI
  20. 20.
    2017 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in the Management of Adults With Aortic Stenosis — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2017. DOI
  21. 21.
    Estimating Left Ventricular Filling Pressure by Echocardiography — Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2017. DOI
  22. 22.
    Mitral Valve Disease: a Comprehensive Review — Current Cardiology Reports, 2017. DOI
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    Influence of decision aids on patient preferences for anticoagulant therapy: a randomized trial — Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2007. DOI
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    Simultaneous bilateral contrast transcranial doppler monitoring in patients with intracardiac and intrapulmonary shunts — Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 1997. DOI
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    Interobserver Variability in Applying American Society of Echocardiography/European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging 2016 Guidelines for Estimation of Left Ventricular Filling Pressure — Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging, 2019. DOI
  26. 26.
    Echocardiographic Assessment of Valve Stenosis: EAE/ASE Recommendations for Clinical Practice — Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 2009. DOI
  27. 27.
    Expert Consensus for Multimodality Imaging Evaluation of Adult Patients during and after Cancer Therapy: A Report from the American Society of Echocardiography and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging — Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 2014. DOI
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    Expert consensus for multimodality imaging evaluation of adult patients during and after cancer therapy: a report from the American Society of Echocardiography and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging — European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging, 2014. DOI
  29. 29.
    Echocardiographic assessment of valve stenosis: EAE/ASE recommendations for clinical practice — European Journal of Echocardiography, 2008. DOI
  30. 30.
    Clinical and Echocardiographic Characteristics of Papillary Fibroelastomas — Circulation, 2001. DOI

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