Hello Ms. Dana, as you may have noticed, kidney cancer isn't listed in the VA recognized diseases associated to Agent Orange. The VA does pay for recognized diseases, yet kidney cancer isn't approved as one of the recognized diseases. Is kidney cancer associated with Agent Orange? The answer seems to be affirmative in a study published in 2011.
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Researchers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Shreveport, La. examined the records of 297 patients diagnosed with kidney cancer between 1987 and 2009. Thirteen of the patients, aged 39 to 63 when they were diagnosed, said they had been exposed to Agent Orange.
Documented exposure to the herbicide and pathology reports were available for 10 of the patients. The researchers reviewed these patients' age at diagnosis, tumor size, side of lesion, pathology and survival.
Nine of the 10 patients had clear-cell cancers, which typically have worse outcomes than papillary tumors, which appeared in one patient. One patient had both clear-cell and papillary cancers.
During the average follow-up of 54 months, four patients developed metastatic cancer and one patient died from his cancer.
The findings were presented Saturday during a special news conference at the American Urological Association (AUA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary because it has not been subjected to the peer review that typically accompanies publication in a medical journal.
"We know that the chemicals in Agent Orange were extremely toxic, and are known to cause cancer," press conference moderator Dr. Anthony Y. Smith said in an AUA news release. "These data indicate that we may need to better determine whether exposure to these chemicals should be considered a risk factor for kidney cancer."
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The study was released in 2011. It takes a long long time for the government to confirm and approve it. Up to now, it's not in the list.
There have been cases being approved over the years, some people said "numerous cases being approved", I don't know. Some filed an official claim, had an in-person hearing, and went through the process. You may consider starting an official claim too.