David Alan Ditsworth

Ditsworth is an American Board Certified Neurosurgeon, who developed a technique and technology for performing endoscopic discectomy as is described and shown in his 1998 article.
Ditsworth has been actively on staff at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles since 1983.
In a 2011 book called "Endoscopic Spine Procedures", Daniel Kim, professor and director of spinal neurosurgery at Baylor University Medical Center, and then subsequently in a 2014 article by Gun Choi, Ditsworth was credited with "opening the endoscopic era via transforaminal approach". Choi and others have published many papers about endoscopic spine surgery utilizing the foundational work of Ditsworth.

In 2016, Ahn also acknowledges the important contribution of Ditsworth, saying "Ditsworth opened the era of real transforaminal approach. Ditsworth described the technique in which a working channel endoscopy passes completely through the foramen into the spinal canal and the surgeon directly removes free fragments and decompresses the nerve root and dural sac." "Since then, a truly transforaminal approach, as opposed to just going through part of the foramen and into the disk, has been developed and the target disk pathology is broadened from contained disk herniation to noncontained disk herniation." To see a picture of the above, see Fig. 1. A in the 1998 article.
Since 1998, Ditsworth and others have authored many scientific publications that have continued to expand the field of endoscopic spine surgery.
Endoscopic spine surgery, without any bone removal, can only be done either through a transforaminal approach (from lateral) or a paramedian approach (from posterior), in order to go through the existing openings into the spinal canal.
After pioneering the "real transforaminal approach", Ditsworth then expanded his endoscopic work into the paramedian approach,
publishing abstracts as follows:

1998
2002
2010
2014
2015
2016

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