Evelyn M. Horn, M.D.

Dr. Evelyn Horn is the Director of Heart Failure and Pulmonary Hypertension at the Perkin Heart Failure Center of Weill Cornell, specializing in Heart Failure, Pulmonary Hypertension, and Mechanical Circulatory Support.  Patients referred to the Center include those with diagnoses of systolic heart failure, valvular heart disease, preserved EF heart failure; pulmonary vascular disease - idiopathic, associated and secondary.

Evelyn M. Horn, M.D. is a graduate of Brown University, Mount Sinai Medical School where she also was a medical intern and resident. She completed cardiology at the Cedars Sinai/UCLA program and thereafter spent 2 years as a research fellow at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons understanding the beta adrenergic G protein complex in heart failure, the denervated heart and models of arrhythmias. She remained at Columbia University Medical Center in the Divisions of Circulatory Physiology and Cardiology Center for Advanced Cardiac Care where she was at various times, Director of the Circulatory Physiology fellowship program, Director of Clinical Services for Heart Failure, Associate Director of the combined Pediatric & Adult Pulmonary Hypertension Center and Director of the Pulmonary Vascular program of the Center for Advanced Cardiac Care. She also was the director of the High Risk Cardiac Obstetrical program. She received numerous awards as clinician educator, continues to participate in clinical research in the areas of cardiac and vascular remodeling in heart failure and pulmonary hypertension and is now the Director of Heart Failure and Pulmonary Hypertension of the Perkin Heart Failure Center at Weill Cornell.

The Heart Failure program provides management of advanced heart failure (both systolic and diastolic), congenital heart disease, perioperative management of conventional cardiac surgical patients (high risk patients and high risk valve surgery), and ventricular assist devices. The center also offers rare expertise in the management of pulmonary hypertension, including idiopathic pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary hypertension associated with diseases such as connective tissue disease, congenital heart disease as well as a huge number of patients who have it in association with left heart disease and others have it associated with lung disease, certain hematological diseases or liver disease. Pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure complicates the management of about 1/3 of the patients with heart failure. In many, right heart failure follows left heart failure but management of difficult "cases" may require a special expertise and understanding of the interdependence of the right and the left ventricles. If cases become complicated by secondary pulmonary hypertension or right heart failure, most of Dr. Horn's colleagues seek out the "right heart doctor," as she has sometimes been called or the combined left and right heart doc.

The phenotype of heart failure has multiple etiologies, and not all heart failure behaves the same way. Because of the nuances and subtleties involved in advanced heart failure, she stresses the importance of the multidisciplinary, collaborative center. Moreover, Dr. Horn points to the center's expertise in identifying the appropriateness and the optimal timing of therapeutic interventions. "We have fantastic technologies and therapies available, but these may not be in every patient's best interest," she explains. "It is essential to understand when therapies will or will not work, and when one has to move beyond them, perhaps to mechanical assist devices or heart transplantation for heart failure and lung transplantation for pulmonary hypertension. If we wait too long, we may have missed the opportunity to treat a patient, but no one wants to resort to devices or transplantation before a patient absolutely needs it."

Dr. Horn's clinical research interests have been in ventricular and vascular remodeling in pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. Specific areas have included RV imaging, pulmonary hypertension outcome studies, use of vasopressin in pulmonary hypertension, endothelial dysfunction in pulmonary hypertension, RV dysfunction in the perioperative patient population, complications of pulmonary hypertension therapy, and assessment of the non PAH pulmonary hypertension patient population. She has been actively involved in the care of patients with valvular heart disease and in particular comorbidities of ventricular dysfunction and/or pulmonary vascular disease. She has been actively involved in the care of patients needing ventricular assist device therapies as a bridging or destination device. Along with colleagues, she has authored papers in the field of newer therapies for pulmonary hypertension, epidemiological assessments of patients with pulmonary hypertension, genetics of pulmonary hypertension, and markers of vascular dysfunction. She has been involved in industry sponsored heart failure and pulmonary hypertension studies, industry sponsored investigator initiated studies and collaborative NIH studies in Heart Failure and Pulmonary Hypertension. She has also been the liaison to high risk cardiac OB programs for the care of the complicated cardiac OB patient.

Research and invited lectures have been presented at major National and International meetings. She is a fellow of the International Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute, helping to establish ISLHT Pulmonary Hypertension Committee and has been the recipient of teaching awards at Columbia University. Dr. Horn has created a NY Pulmonary Hypertension consortium, a network of a dozen specialists from the tri-state area, to encourage ongoing collaborative studies in pulmonary hypertension.