Dr. Carlos Andrés Mejía

Dr. Carlos Andrés Mejía is a consultant interventional cardiologist at Fundación Valle del Lili in Cali — Colombia's most internationally recognised academic medical centre and one of the highest-accredited hospitals in Latin America. Fundación Valle del Lili holds Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation and is regularly cited among the top hospitals in South America, attracting patients from across Colombia and the broader Andean region.

With 18 years of experience in interventional cardiology, Dr. Mejía has built one of the most technically versatile coronary intervention practices in southwestern Colombia. He manages the complete spectrum of coronary artery disease — from straightforward single-vessel interventions to the most complex multivessel and chronic total occlusion (CTO) cases — and has been instrumental in developing Fundación Valle del Lili's structural heart disease programme, which now offers transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to patients who cannot safely undergo conventional surgical valve replacement.

Dr. Mejía works within a multidisciplinary Heart Team at Fundación Valle del Lili that includes cardiac surgeons, imaging cardiologists, and heart failure specialists. This collaborative approach ensures that complex coronary and structural decisions are made collectively, with the patient's individual anatomy, risk profile, and personal preferences at the centre of every treatment decision.

Beyond his procedural practice, Dr. Mejía maintains an active clinical cardiology service, managing patients with acute coronary syndromes in the coronary care unit and providing outpatient follow-up for patients after coronary intervention. He is known among his colleagues for his calm and systematic approach in the catheterisation laboratory, particularly during primary PCI procedures for acute myocardial infarction where speed and technical precision are critical.

Dr. Mejía completed his medical degree at the Universidad del Valle in Cali — one of Colombia's leading research universities and the academic partner of Fundación Valle del Lili. He undertook his Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship in Cali, training at Fundación Valle del Lili where he developed a thorough grounding in both general cardiology and cardiac intensive care.

He subsequently pursued an advanced fellowship in Interventional Cardiology, spending time at a high-volume catheterisation laboratory in South America and a further training period at a North American centre with a specialised focus on complex PCI and CTO revascularisation techniques. He also completed structured training in structural heart disease interventions including TAVR, building the skills needed to lead Fundación Valle del Lili's transcatheter valve programme.

Dr. Mejía holds specialist certification from the Colombian Society of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery (SCC) and is a certified interventional cardiologist through the Colombian Interventional Cardiology Association (ACICA). He is an international member of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and regularly attends their annual scientific sessions.

Dr. Mejía's catheterisation laboratory practice encompasses the full range of modern interventional cardiology. In coronary intervention, he performs elective and emergency PCI using drug-eluting stents, employing intracoronary imaging (IVUS and OCT) to guide stent sizing and post-dilatation, and fractional flow reserve (FFR) or iFR assessment to determine the haemodynamic significance of intermediate lesions before deciding whether to intervene.

He is among a small group of Colombian interventionalists with established expertise in CTO revascularisation, applying both antegrade wire escalation and retrograde approaches to restore blood flow in chronically occluded coronary arteries — procedures that can significantly improve angina symptoms and quality of life in carefully selected patients. His complex PCI work also includes bifurcation stenting, rotational atherectomy for severely calcified coronary lesions, and haemodynamic support with intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) in high-risk cases.

In structural cardiology, Dr. Mejía performs TAVR for high- and intermediate-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, working with the cardiac surgery team to ensure rigorous preprocedural CT-based planning and a systematic approach to vascular access and valve sizing.

Dr. Mejía's research contributions reflect both his clinical interests and his commitment to generating locally relevant evidence in Colombian and Latin American cardiology. He has participated in multicentre registries evaluating outcomes of coronary intervention and TAVR in Colombian patients, contributing procedural and follow-up data that inform national clinical practice guidelines.

He has presented his clinical outcomes at meetings of the Colombian Society of Cardiology and at regional Latin American cardiology congresses, with a focus on CTO-PCI outcomes and TAVR implantation results at Fundación Valle del Lili. His current research interests include refining CTO patient selection criteria for the Colombian population and evaluating one-year TAVR outcomes at his institution compared with international benchmarks. He is a co-investigator on a multicentre Colombian study assessing the long-term durability of contemporary drug-eluting stents in diabetic patients.

Dr. Mejía conducts consultations in Spanish and English. Fundación Valle del Lili has a formal international patient programme and regularly receives cardiac patients from Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States who seek high-quality cardiac care at competitive costs compared with North American or European centres.

For international patients requiring coronary angiography, complex PCI, CTO revascularisation, or TAVR evaluation, Dr. Mejía's team can arrange structured consultations including pre-procedure cardiac CT and echocardiography planning. Video consultations are available for remote review of prior angiographic images, echocardiograms, and stress test results, enabling a preliminary interventional assessment before the patient travels to Cali. The hospital's international office supports travel logistics, medical translation, insurance coordination, and accommodation arrangements.

Dr. Mejía holds specialist certification from the Colombian Society of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery (SCC) and is certified in interventional cardiology by the Colombian Interventional Cardiology Association (ACICA). He is an international member of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI). Within Fundación Valle del Lili, he has been recognised for his leadership in establishing the structural heart disease programme and for achieving clinical outcomes in complex PCI that benchmark favourably against international centres. He serves as an academic mentor for cardiology fellows and interventional cardiology trainees at the institution.