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It’s a medical success story with an unavoidable consequence: Fewer people who suffer severe head injuries are being declared “brain dead” — the major source of organs for transplant.

The findings, published in this week’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, help explain “stagnant or even declining rates of deceased organ donation,” Canadian researchers say, and mean doctors will need to increasingly look for other sources of organs — including from patients who aren’t formally “neurologically dead.”

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The 10-year study of nearly 2,788 brain injured adults in southern Alberta found the proportion who progressed to brain death has fallen dramatically, from eight per cent at the start of the study, in 2002, to four per cent in 2012, and a low of 2.2 per cent in 2010.

The change likely reflects not only a drop in traffic-related deaths and non-fatal crashes, as well as efforts to push helmets for cycling and skiing, but also advances in treating head trauma in every link in the chain, researchers say.