Melanoma: Vital Health Facts For Veterans

[allan]

MELANOMA: VITAL HEALTH FACTS FOR VETERANS

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?n...le&sid=5747

[john999]

You know if a vet served in a desert or tropical environment I think skin cancers should be presumptive. In RVN we all worked with our shirts off around the base filing sandbags and stringing wire. Many new guys got burned to a crisp the first few days before they either got brown or put their shirts back on. The exposure to the tropical sun is dangerous. I have little pre-cancerous spots that have been removed over the last 15 years. I don't like the sun and I stay out of it, and yet I have these spots. I did not work outdoors for the last 25 years.

[darkhorse]

Thanks James, that clears things up a lot. Now I know how to proceed.

DH

This is not a problem if your basal cell carcinoma existed in service as shown by your service treatment records. I don't see basal cell carcinoma listed as a condition subject to presumptive service connection if manifested to a compensable degree within some period of your discharge; so it looks like you're looking for service connection on a directly incurred basis. If your service treatment records are positive for basal cell carcinoma, I would look at those, as well as the records of your surgery (they tell me that you had surgery for the carcioma instead of something else), and I request a medical exam of your skin to evaluate your resulting scars. I would grant service connection for scars secondary to basal cell carcinoma. Presumably at this point you no longer have basal cell carcinoma, so I can't really service connect you for a chronic condition if you don't have it anymore, so I can't grant the carcinoma even at 0 percent. But the scars, yes, I could, because the SCARS are chronic (they're permanent by definition, and they'd be secondary to a condition that you had in service).

If your basal cell carcinoma wasn't diagnosed in service, or within some sort of presumptive period that I'm not aware of, you would be out of luck for getting the scars service connected.

Does that make any sense?

[darkhorse]

I think i'm out of luck though since I was never treated or diagnosed basal cell in service. :P

dh

Thanks James, that clears things up a lot. Now I know how to proceed.

DH