The Veteran's cause of death, listed as cholangiocarcinoma, is being remanded for further evaluation to determine if it was causally or etiologically due to service.
The deciding factor: A medical opinion is needed to assess whether the Veteran’s in-service symptoms and exposure theory are related to his later diagnosed condition.
- Claimed conditions
- Cholangiocarcinoma
- How they argued it
- Reopened with new and material evidence
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 10, 2019
- Citation
- 19102738
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.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that the evidence did not support a causal link between the Veteran's cholangiocarcinoma and his military service.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that his cholangiocarcinoma was at least as likely as not related to his service-connected diabetes mellitus and/or in-service herbicide agent exposure.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that his cholangiocarcinoma was related to in-service exposure to herbicide agents and/or parasitic infection.
- Denied
The Veteran's cause of death was intrahepatic biliary cancer, which the VA medical opinions concluded was not related to his military service or herbicide exposure.
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This is general information, not legal advice. For advice about your own situation, talk to a VA-accredited representative — many help for free.