The Board denied service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death due to metastatic renal cell carcinoma, finding that it was not caused by or aggravated by his service-connected left sacroiliac strain. The evidence did not support a link between herbicide exposure and kidney cancer.
The deciding factor: The VA medical opinion found no causal relationship between the service-connected left sacroiliac strain and the Veteran's kidney cancer, which was attributed to smoking rather than herbicide exposure.
- Claimed conditions
- metastatic renal cell carcinoma
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 25, 2019
- Citation
- 19106403
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,050 · Granted: 23% (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 19106403.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's metastatic renal cell carcinoma is service connected, and it caused the removal of his kidney and a jaw nodule.,Metastatic renal cell cancer led to the removal of the Veteran's left kidney and a metastatic nodule in the parotid gland.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for service connection for metastatic renal cell carcinoma, removal of a kidney due to renal cancer, and a metastatic nodule in the jaw for additional development.
- Granted
The Board granted entitlement to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) based on service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, as his metastatic renal cell carcinoma was related to toxic exposure risk activity in service.
- Granted
The Veteran's metastatic renal cell carcinoma is related to his active-duty service, and the Board has granted service connection for this condition.
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