In Reply.—Miele raises the issue of what role the length of the laceration has in the practitioner's ability to detect glass fragments. In our study population, there was no difference in length between the wounds that contained glass (mean length, 2.3 cm; median length, 2 cm; range, 0.5 to 6 cm) and those that did not (mean length, 2.4 cm; median length, 2 cm; range 0.2 to 15 cm). In addition, there was no association between the inability to visualize the bottom of the wound and the length of the wound (2.6 cm vs 2.3 cm; not significant).
As we discussed in our article, we were unable to measure the degree of examiner confidence that the bottom of the would had been visualized. Although our data did not show an association between the length of the wound and the inability to see the bottom of the wound, we did