Top Cardiologists in New York 2026

Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of the Cardiovascular Data Science Center, Dr. Leon sees patients at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and two affiliated sites.

He is one of the cardiologists most responsible for making transcatheter aortic valve replacement what it is today. His focus is structural heart disease — primarily aortic stenosis, the condition where the valve that controls blood flow out of the heart becomes stiff and narrow, a problem that once required open-chest surgery to fix.

The landmark PARTNER trial, which Dr. Leon led as first and corresponding author, showed that TAVR reduced death and rehospitalization in patients with severe aortic stenosis who couldn't tolerate surgery ¹. A follow-up published in 2011 found that TAVR and surgical replacement produced similar one-year survival rates in high-risk patients, though with different complication profiles ². By 2019, the PARTNER 3 trial demonstrated that TAVR actually outperformed surgery in low-risk patients — the composite of death, stroke, or rehospitalization was significantly lower at one year with the catheter-based approach ³. That finding extended TAVR eligibility well beyond the initially cautious indications and changed how cardiologists counsel younger, healthier patients with aortic stenosis.

Director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and the Dr. Valentin Fuster Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dr. Bhatt is a preventive cardiologist and interventionalist with a particular focus on reducing long-term cardiovascular risk.

His research touches a wide range of patients: people with type 2 diabetes and heart disease, those on statins who still have dangerous triglyceride levels, and patients recovering from a heart attack who remain at high risk despite standard therapy.

The REDUCE-IT trial, which Dr. Bhatt led, tested a purified omega-3 fatty acid called icosapent ethyl in patients with elevated triglycerides who were already on statins. Among that population, the drug cut the risk of serious cardiovascular events — including cardiovascular death — compared to placebo ⁵. The DECLARE-TIMI 58 trial evaluated dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor used for diabetes, and found it reduced hospitalizations for heart failure even though it didn't lower the overall rate of major cardiac events ⁶. That distinction matters clinically: heart failure hospitalization is one of the most common and costly complications for people with diabetes, and identifying drugs that specifically reduce it reshapes prescribing decisions. The ODYSSEY OUTCOMES trial showed that alirocumab, a cholesterol-lowering injection, cut recurrent cardiovascular events in patients who had already had an acute coronary syndrome and were on high-intensity statins ⁹.

Director of Columbia Interventional Cardiovascular Care and Chief Academic Officer of the Division of Cardiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Kirtane is one of the busiest interventional cardiologists in New York. His practice spans coronary artery disease, valve disease, and hypertension managed through renal denervation.

His research contributions include work on anticoagulation during primary PCI. The HORIZONS-AMI trial showed that bivalirudin alone — compared with heparin plus more aggressive antiplatelet drugs — significantly reduced major bleeding and net adverse events in patients with ST-elevation heart attacks undergoing emergency stenting ¹². That finding changed anticoagulation protocols in cardiac catheterization labs across the country. He was also part of the international collaboration that produced the VARC-2 consensus document, which standardized how outcomes in TAVR trials are defined and reported — work that made it possible to meaningfully compare results across different valve systems and patient populations ¹³.

Professor of Medicine and Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Research and Clinical Trials at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, Dr. Mehran practices at Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens.

She has spent much of her career on a problem that sounds mundane but turns out to be critical: how you define and measure outcomes in cardiovascular trials. Her work on the Academic Research Consortium produced standardized definitions for clinical endpoints in coronary stent studies ¹⁶ — the kind of methodological infrastructure that makes it possible to compare a trial from Milan with one from Houston. The Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC) criteria she co-developed gave the field a common language for classifying bleeding complications in clinical trials, which had previously been defined inconsistently across studies ⁷. That work underpins much of the safety data you see cited when a cardiologist recommends a particular anticoagulation or antiplatelet strategy.

Her research on plaque biology — specifically the "vulnerable plaque, vulnerable patient" framework — helped shift thinking about why some plaques rupture and cause heart attacks while others don't ¹⁷.

Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Surgery (Vascular) at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of Cardiovascular Innovation at the Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, Dr. Dangas practices at Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Queens, and Mount Sinai Medical Center.

He has a dual focus on interventional cardiology and vascular complications of cardiac procedures. Among his most practically relevant contributions is a risk score he developed for predicting which patients undergoing coronary angiography are likely to develop kidney injury from contrast dye — a complication called contrast-induced nephropathy ²¹. That score is now built into decision-making at catheterization labs worldwide, helping clinicians identify at-risk patients before the procedure and take steps to protect kidney function.

His involvement in the FREEDOM trial, which enrolled diabetic patients with multivessel coronary artery disease, added important nuance to the bypass surgery versus stenting debate. The trial found that CABG reduced deaths and heart attacks more effectively than PCI in this population, though it came with a higher stroke rate ²². For patients with both diabetes and complex coronary disease, that result still shapes the conversation about which revascularization strategy to choose.

Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director of the S.P. and Seema Lohia Cardiovascular Clinical Institute, and Director of Interventional Cardiology for the Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Sharma has spent decades building one of the highest-volume interventional cardiology programs in the country.

His clinical focus includes complex coronary interventions — particularly cases involving heavily calcified arteries, where standard balloon and stent techniques fail without additional preparation. He has been a major contributor to the literature on rotational atherectomy, a technique that uses a tiny spinning burr to drill through calcified plaque before a stent is placed ²⁶²⁷. For patients with calcified coronary disease who might otherwise be turned away from catheterization-based treatment, this expertise expands what's technically possible. He has also published on coronary procedures after TAVR — a growing area of concern as more patients who've had their aortic valve replaced via catheter subsequently need coronary interventions ²⁸.