Overview
Cleveland Clinic’s Valve Center provides patients with a comprehensive treatment approach that involves the care of experts in various diseases and conditions.
What makes Cleveland Clinic’s Valve Center unique?
- Cleveland Clinic treats more patients with valve disease than any other hospital in the United States.
- Our outcomes are among the best in the world. Our surgeons achieve better than expected results for all types of valve surgery, including reoperations and complex disease.
- We provide a comprehensive approach to care that includes:
- Monitoring and medical management.
- A variety of surgical procedures to meet your needs - minimally invasive, robot-assisted and traditional approaches.
- Percutaneous valve treatments for patients who are extremely high-risk for surgery.
- Experienced care for younger patients and professional athletes who need to make lifelong treatment decisions.
- Our medical teams are dedicated to research and innovations to offer patients the latest advances in treatment.
- Our care is focused on YOU. We work with you to meet your goals and get you back to a healthy and active life!
Treatment Options
Patients come from around the world for valve care at Cleveland Clinic. We care for patients with:
- Mitral valve disease
- Aortic valve disease, including bicuspid aortic valve disease
- Aortic valve disease that includes the aortic root or aorta
- Tricuspid valve disease
- Pulmonic valve disease
- Complex valve disease affecting more than one valve or who need combined treatment for other medical conditions
- Valve disease and atrial fibrillation
- Need for reoperation for valve disease
- Valve disease related to prior chemotherapy or radiation therapy
- Infective Endocarditis
- Valve disease that other doctors have deemed untreatable
Doctors in Cleveland Clinic’s Valve Center also specialize in the treatment of:
- Very young patients with valve disease
- Very elderly patients with valve disease
- Athletes with valve disease
Treatment plans are designed based on the patient’s individual needs. Our treatments include:
- Mitral valve repair and replacement
- Aortic valve repair and replacement
- Tricuspid valve repair and replacement
- Pulmonic valve repair and replacement
- Minimally invasive heart valve surgery
- Robotically assisted mitral valve surgery
- Heart surgery that involves the aortic valve and aorta
- Combined heart surgeries for valve and atrial fibrillation as well as complex conditions
- Interventional options with transcatheter valve procedures for mitral, aortic, tricuspid and pulmonic valves
- Programs for long-term monitoring of valve disease
Links to specialty centers:
Doctors
The Cleveland Clinic Valve Center offers a multi-disciplinary team of specialists in cardiology, interventional cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, specialized imaging, and pathology.
- Brian Griffin, MD, Medical Director
- Marc Gillinov, MD, Surgical Director
- Samir Kapadia, MD, Interventional Director
Multidisciplinary Team
Cardiovascular Medicine - Medical
Diagnoses valve disease and cares for patients over time; sees patients for scheduled office visits, monitoring and medical management.
Section of Cardiovascular Imaging
- Patrick Collier, MD, PhD
- Milind Desai, MD
- Brian Griffin, MD
- Richard Grimm, DO
- Serge Harb, MD
- Wael Jaber, MD
- Christine Jellis, MD
- Vidyasagar Kalahasti, MD
- Allan Klein, MD
- Deborah Kwon, MD
- Venu Menon, MD
- Rhonda Miyasaka, MD
- Zoran Popovic, MD, PhD
- Jay Ramchand, MD, PhD
- Leonardo Rodriguez, MD
- Maran Thamilarasan, MD
- Suma Thomas, MD
- Tom Wang, MD
- Bo Xu, MD
Section of Clinical Cardiology
- Ajay Bhargava, MD
- Maan Fares MD
- Michael Faulx, MD
- Donald Hammer, MD
- Umesh Khot, MD
- Heba Wassif, MD, MPH
Cardiovascular Medicine - Interventional
Performs transcatheter valve procedures.
Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Faisal Bakaeen, MD
- Daniel Burns, MD
- Haytham Elgharably, MD
- Marc Gillinov, MD
- Kenneth McCurry, MD
- Eric Roselli, MD
- Nicholas Smedira, MD
- Edward Soltesz, MD
- Lars Svensson, MD, PhD
- Michael Tong, MD
- Shinya Unai, MD
- Patrick Vargo, MD
- Aaron Weiss, MD
Cardiothoracic Anesthesia
Pediatric & Congenital Heart Surgery
- Hani Najm, MD - Chair of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery
- Tara Karamlou, MD
Pathology
Appointments
Due to the nature of valve disease, your needs as a patient will guide your care. For example, you may want to have regular follow-up over a long period of time, or maybe you have just been diagnosed with valve disease and want to establish a treatment plan. Perhaps you are exploring treatment options and need a surgery consultation. No matter what your needs, we are here for you every step of the way. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call.
Traveling to Cleveland Clinic
To help make your visit to Cleveland Clinic as easy as possible, please visit: Information on travel to the Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute.
Clinical Team Appointments
To make an appointment, please call toll-free 800.659.7822 Cardiology Appointments or Request an Appointment online.
If your scheduled appointment is at least one week away, you will be asked to send in a copy of your medical records, including a medical history, test results and films (echocardiogram, ultrasound, chest X-ray, MRI, CT). All information should be sent in the same package (clearly marked with your name and address) via Airborne Express, Federal Express, or certified US mail (make sure you have a tracking number) to the physician you will be seeing at Cleveland Clinic. Your appointment may be with Cardiovascular Imaging (Desk J1-5) or Clinical Cardiology (Desk J2-4), depending on your condition and needs.
The address to mail your records is:
Physician Name
Cleveland Clinic
Desk #
9500 Euclid Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44195
If your scheduled appointment is less than one week away, please bring your records to your appointment.
What to expect during your appointment
Your appointment may last the entire day, so be prepared. Your appointment will begin by meeting with a nurse or physician assistant (PA) who will collect information about your medical history, symptoms and test results, and enter your information into our electronic medical record. This will help the doctor during your exam.
You may need blood and imaging tests, such as an electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, MRI or CT scan. The specialists in the Valve Center will use these tests to help diagnosis your condition and to create an individualized treatment plan for you. A cardiologist from the Valve Center will review your records, take a medical history, perform a physical exam, and, if needed, consult with other physicians in the Valve Center to discuss your condition. If you need to meet with one of the multidisciplinary specialists, we will try to arrange a meeting with them within a day to limit your travel to and from Cleveland Clinic. The Valve Center cardiologist will talk to you about your diagnosis and plan of care within 1 to 2 days, depending on when your test results are completed.
How long will you need to stay at Cleveland Clinic?
You should plan on spending 1 to 2 days in the Cleveland area. Your stay may be longer if a treatment is scheduled at the time of your visit.
Follow-up
Your doctor will talk to you about your plan for follow-up care.
Cardiovascular Surgery Team Appointments
If you would like information about your surgical options for your valve disease, you can send your medical records in for a review. The process involves several steps:
- Contact the Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute Resource Nurses, who will collect information such as your contact information and the type of surgery you need.
- The nurses will give you a list of the information needed to complete the surgical review and tell you how to send in your information.
- You will send in your records to be reviewed by one of our surgeons.
- The surgeon’s office will call you to let you know about your surgical options. The process generally takes a couple weeks once we receive your films, unless your physician determines that there is an urgent need for surgery.
- If you decide to have surgery at Cleveland Clinic, you will be given a surgery date. In some cases, the surgeon will want to see you for a consultation and then schedule your surgery at another time.
What to expect during your appointment
You will need to arrive a few days before your surgery to have a full evaluation and meet your surgical team. You and your family will attend a program to prepare you for what to expect before, during and after your surgery. See Heart Surgery at Cleveland Clinic for more information about having surgery at Cleveland Clinic.
How long will you need to stay at Cleveland Clinic?
Your hospital stay depends on many factors, such as your condition, the type of surgery you need and your medical history. Generally, patients who live outside of the Cleveland area come to Cleveland a day or two prior to surgery, stay in the hospital 5 to 7 days, and stay in Cleveland at least one night after leaving the hospital before traveling home. We ask that you return to Cleveland Clinic for a post-op visit during the first week after you leave the hospital, so you may want to plan on staying in the area until after that visit.
Follow-up
Your doctor will talk to you about your plan for follow-up care.
Publications & Research
Cleveland Clinic physicians share their expertise in valve disease and treatment through the publication of articles in leading medical journals and chapters in medical textbooks. They are also actively involved in the creation of national guidelines for the care of patients with heart valve disease. These guidelines are used around the world as the standard for optimal treatment. For more information about these publications, visit Medical Professional Publications.
In addition to being leading authorities in the treatment of patients with valve disease, Cleveland Clinic surgeons, cardiologists and researchers have been instrumental in the creation of new treatment devices, surgical techniques and designs for replacement valves and systems for percutaneous valve placement. Learn more about research at Cleveland Clinic.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials (or research studies) help us create the medicine of tomorrow. They provide hope through offering testing of new drugs, new surgical techniques or other treatments before they are widely available.
We can help you access hundreds of clinical trials across all specialty areas. Our new searchable online trials tool makes identifying treatment opportunities easier than ever.
Resources & Patient Info
Contact
To make an appointment with the Valve Center - Call toll free 800.659.7822.
To obtain a surgical consultation, or if you have additional questions or need more information, contact us, chat online with a nurse or call the Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute Resource & Information Nurse at 216.445.9288 or toll-free at 866.289.6911. We would be happy to help you.
Treatment Guides
Videos
Interactive Tools
- Aortic Valve Stenosis Tool
- Mitral
- Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute Interactive Tools
Why choose Cleveland Clinic for your care?
Our outcomes speak for themselves. Please review our facts and figures and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
