The Board has decided to remand the Veteran's claim for further development due to inadequate medical opinions regarding his service connection for renal cell carcinoma and its relationship to diabetes mellitus.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not provide a thorough explanation of whether the Veteran’s kidney condition was caused by or related to his military service, including exposure to Agent Orange, or if it was aggravated by his service-connected diabetes mellitus.
- Claimed conditions
- Renal Cell Carcinoma
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- August 13, 2019
- Citation
- 19162312
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,506 · Granted: 43% (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 19162312.
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 Veteran's renal cell carcinoma, along with its associated right and left lower extremity peripheral edema, has been granted service connection effective September 1, 2015.,Effective September 1, 2015, the Veteran is also entitled to an earlier effective date for his service-connected right and left lower extremity peripheral edema.
- Granted
The Veteran's renal cell carcinoma status post right nephrectomy and partial left nephrectomy was granted a 100% rating effective February 17, 2021. The decision also addressed an earlier effective date for the grant of a 100% rating.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for a rating in excess of 30 percent for renal dysfunction, effective August 1, 2019, is denied.,The Veteran's claim for a rating in excess of 60 percent for renal dysfunction, effective November 5, 2020, is denied.
- Denied
The Board denied compensation under 38 U.S.C. § 1151 for the loss of the right kidney and an incisional hernia following a nephrectomy due to insufficient evidence showing that VA's failure to timely diagnose or treat the conditions caused additional disability.,No new evidence was presented, nor did the Veteran provide sufficient medical expertise to support his claims.
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