The Board denied service connection for kidney cancer and lung cancer, as the evidence did not support a causal or etiological relationship to any in-service disease, injury, incident, or exposure.
The deciding factor: The October 2024 VA oncologist's medical opinion determined that non-ionizing radiation exposure was unlikely to have caused the Veteran's kidney cancer and that his lung cancer was a metastasization of his nonservice-connected kidney cancer.
- Claimed conditions
- kidney cancer, lung cancer
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 2, 2025
- Citation
- 25006035
What this means for you
A denial is a starting point, not the end of the road. You can see why this claim fell short — and, if you are still inside the one-year window, the appeal lanes that may remain open to you.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that his lung cancer was related to his service-connected melanoma.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for cause of death to obtain a new medical opinion due to errors in previous examinations.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an effective date of December 12, 2023, for a 50 percent evaluation of bipolar disorder and remanded the other issues for further development.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for an adequate medical opinion regarding the Veteran's cause of death, including lung cancer and cardio-pulmonary arrest, to address in-service toxic exposures.
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