The Board denied service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death due to renal cell cancer, finding no evidence that it was related to his military service.
The deciding factor: The record lacks a competent medical opinion or other evidence necessary to establish a causal relationship between the Veteran's renal cell cancer and his military service.
- Claimed conditions
- Renal cell cancer
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 10, 2025
- Citation
- A25097558
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 696 · Granted: 63% (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 A25097558.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Veteran's cause of death was due to acute respiratory failure, with pulmonary edema, acute renal failure, renal cell cancer, and coronary artery disease as contributing causes. The VA examiner found that the asbestos exposure did not contribute to these conditions.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to the need for further readjudication, including determining whether hypertension could serve as an intermediate step between the Veteran's service and his renal cell cancer.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death and for Dependent’s Educational Assistance (DEA) benefits due to ambiguity in the record regarding the nature of the Veteran's cancer diagnosis.
- Granted
The Veteran's death is attributed to his service-connected exposure to mustard gas, which compromised his immune system and contributed to the development of cancer that ultimately caused his death. The Board finds in favor of granting service connection for the cause of death.
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