Léon Dufourmentel

Who was Léon Dufourmentel?

Léon Dufourmentel was a French surgeon, son of a merchant, who specialized in maxillofacial surgery, leading to reconstructive surgery. Intern of Hospitals of Paris, then leader of the clinical faculty of medicine of Paris. He was the son-in-law of the anatomist Pierre Sebileau, and the father of plastic surgeon Claude Dufourmentel.

During the First World War, he was responsible for caring for Gueules cassées, and being led to the creation of units of maxillofacial surgery, he found a method for repairing facial wounds: He described a pedicled vascularized flap from the temporal scalp and transferred the tissue to the chin area. This tissue transfer was more reliable than a free skin graft. It was his idea to first use prosthetic inclusions prior to 1930 - then implants used were mostly made of ivory, rubber on the nose.