At the beginning and during its initial stages of development in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the adoption of endoscopic spine surgery was slow and limited to a few early-adopters and pioneers. Yet, in the last decade, endoscopic spine surgery has experienced an exponential rise in popularity and adoption all over the world by both orthopedic and neurologic surgeons.
This is mostly due to improving instrumentation and increased availability of educational opportunities, as well as an ever-broadening scope of indications. Furthermore, an increasing number of high-quality randomized control trials have finally provided solid evidence for the long-anticipated superior cost-effectiveness and non-inferior clinical outcome of spinal endoscopic procedures.