The Veteran's skin cancer of his left ear was not shown as chronic in service and did not manifest to a compensable degree within the applicable presumptive period. The disability is not otherwise etiologically related to an in-service injury or disease.
The deciding factor: Service connection for skin cancer of the left ear was denied because there was no evidence showing that the condition was incurred during active service, as it was diagnosed over 45 years after discharge and did not manifest within a presumptive period. The Veteran's representative argued for presumptive service connection based on herbicide exposure in Vietnam, but this is not recognized by VA.
- Claimed conditions
- skin cancer of the left ear
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 30, 2019
- Citation
- 19106951
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,350 · Granted: 26% (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 19106951.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Veteran's skin cancer of his left ear was not shown as chronic in service and did not manifest to a compensable degree within the applicable presumptive period. The disability is not otherwise etiologically related to an in-service injury or disease.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for skin cancer of the left ear, right eyebrow, nose, left shoulder, and neck as there was no evidence linking these conditions to his military service or exposure to herbicides. The only diagnosed form of skin cancer was basal cell carcinoma found in 2005 on the left posterior neck.
- 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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected coronary artery disease, finding that the evidence did not support a higher rating based on the severity of his condition.
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