The Board is remanding the case to obtain medical records and determine if the veteran's cause of death, listed as acute myocardial infarction cor pulmonale, is related to underlying atherosclerotic heart disease or hypertensive vascular disease.
The deciding factor: The examiner must provide an opinion on whether it is more likely than not that the cause of the veteran's death is related to underlying atherosclerotic heart disease or hypertensive vascular disease.
- Claimed conditions
- atherosclerotic heart disease, hypertensive vascular disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 30, 2006
- Citation
- 0633604
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,467 · Granted: 18% (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 0633604.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board has granted DIC benefits based on service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that his service-connected prostate cancer and its treatment caused his death due to side effects from Zytiga.
- Denied
The Veteran's death due to cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease was not related or attributable to his military service, thus denying the claim for service connection for cause of death.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for hypertensive vascular disease, concussion, diabetes mellitus, seizure disability, bilateral pes planus, and an acquired psychiatric disorder (alcohol use disorder in sustained remission and PTSD). The effective date for hypertension was denied as the Veteran's claim was received within one year of the PACT Act.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's appeal involves multiple service-connected and non-service-connected conditions, with some issues being remanded for further evaluation. The primary issue is the need to determine if additional evaluations are warranted for various disabilities.
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