Comparison of short and long arm plaster casts for displaced fractures in the distal third of the forearm in children.

To The Editor: I read with interest “Comparison of Short and Long Arm Plaster Casts for Displaced Fractures in the Distal Third of the Forearm in Children” (2006;88:9-17), by Webb et al. I congratulate the authors on performing a prospective randomized trial, but I would ask them to respond to a number of remaining and important questions. One of the results described in this paper is that long arm casts have a higher failure rate than short arm casts. A possible reason provided by the authors is that long arm casts “are technically more difficult to apply, which results in poorer molding around the forearm.” However, the authors' method of applying a long arm cast was to place a molded short arm cast first and …