The Veteran's kidney cancer is granted service connection due to exposure to Agent Orange during his service in Korea.
The deciding factor: The Board found the evidence to be in equipoise on whether the Veteran’s in-service herbicide exposure caused kidney cancer, and granted service connection based on this finding.
- Claimed conditions
- renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer)
- How they argued it
- Presumptive (no nexus needed)
- Exposure basis
- Agent Orange / herbicides
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- August 22, 2019
- Citation
- 19165493
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,200 · 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 19165493.
What this means for you
A grant means the Board agreed the veteran was entitled to the benefit. Decisions like this show the kind of evidence and arguments that tend to succeed for claims like it.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Veteran's renal cell carcinoma with liver metastasis and breast cancer (ductal carcinoma in situ) were not incurred during active duty, ACDUTRA, or INACDUTRA. The VA examiners found insufficient evidence linking the cancers to service exposures.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for chronic kidney disease and renal cell carcinoma due to an inadequate medical opinion.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board denied service connection for soft tissue cancer and intestine cancer, but remanded the claims for renal cell carcinoma, brain cancer, bone cancer, and lung cancer due to in-service herbicide exposure.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for kidney cancer to obtain a medical opinion considering the Veteran's toxic exposure risk activities, including asbestos exposure.
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