The Board found that the veteran's death was not caused by any service-connected disability and denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the veteran's death.
The deciding factor: There is no evidence showing a direct link between the veteran's service-connected disabilities and his fatal cancer, nor can it be presumed due to radiation exposure as he did not participate in a radiation-risk activity during service.
- Claimed conditions
- Adenocarcinoma of unknown primary
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 24, 2003
- Citation
- 0305447
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,514 · Granted: 19% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 0305447.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's death was caused by a disability of service origin, and thus grants service connection for the cause of his death.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for the cause of death due to lack of evidence linking the cancer to service or a service-connected condition.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has ordered additional development to determine the primary site of the veteran's death-causing liver cancer and whether it is among the diseases listed in 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e) due to Agent Orange exposure.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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