The Board has denied the Veteran's service connection claims for metastatic cancer to the head and neck and right shoulder bone cancer, finding no evidence of a causal relationship between these conditions and his active service or any other relevant factors.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner found no connection between the Veteran’s cancers and his active service, including herbicide exposure, or his service-connected residuals of prostate cancer.
- Claimed conditions
- metastatic cancer to the head and neck, right shoulder bone cancer
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 18, 2020
- Citation
- 20080080
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 20080080.
What this means for you
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What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for right shoulder bone cancer and metastatic cancer to the head and neck, finding that these conditions were caused or aggravated by exposure in service or due to a pre-existing condition (prostate cancer).
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has reopened the service connection claim for metastatic cancer to the head and neck, but has remanded both the original claim and the new claim for right shoulder bone cancer due to insufficient evidence.
- 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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