Trained in Erasme Hospital, University of Brussels by Michel Cremer and Jacques Deviere, he became the leader of the Pancreatico-Biliary group at the University of Virginia before joining Weill Cornell Medical College as the Chief of Endoscopy and Pancreas Program Director in July 2011. Dr. Kahaleh's research is focused on interventional endoscopy, and the use of new devices to diagnose and treat various gastrointestinal disorders. Dr. Kahaleh has conducted 30 clinical research studies since 15 years and published 320 papers and 200 national and international scientific presentations. Dr. Kahaleh has been involved in in-vivo projects aiming at improving minimally invasive procedures such as per-oral endoscopic myotomy for achalasia, gallbladder drainage, biliary and pancreatic decompression. He is credited with creating a new endoscopic approach for biliary obstructions in altered anatomy patients called EUS-directed transgastric endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. He helped develop and validate new diagnostic criteria for improving accuracy in diagnosis of bile duct cancer using confocal laser endomicroscopy called the Paris classification. He led a team of expert endoscopists to develop and validate the Monaco classification diagnostic criteria for bile duct cancer using the SpyGlass® Direct Visualization System for cholangioscopy. Dr. Kahaleh was one of the first to publish on radio frequency ablation for bile duct cancer and pancreatic cancer therapy using Dr. Nagy Habib's probe in the United States. He was the first to publish a clinical trial on photodynamic therapy in the United States for bile duct cancer. He was the first to conduct a pre-clinical study of a radio frequency ablation probe using endoscopic ultrasound meant for treating pancreatic cancer. The EUS-RFA probe was created by Dr. Nagy Habib and has been successfully used in humans after the pre-clinical study. Dr. Kahaleh has further published papers on additional minimally invasive endoscopic treatment for several conditions including pancreatic fluid collections, gastroparesis, gastric outlet obstruction, obesity weight loss procedures, esophageal tumors and others. Dr. Kahaleh has created a personalized training program which allowed him to train physicians on endoscopic submucosal dissection and POEM in the US, Italy, Spain, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Mexico and Argentina. As the Founder of the Therapeutic Endoscopic Ultrasound Society, along with colleague co-founder Dr. Todd Baron, Dr. Kahaleh has hosted the annual consortium on Therapeutic EUS during the Digestive Disease Week for the past 8 years.
Honors and awards
Graduate cum Laude - 1994, Awarded By: University of Brussels
