marrow biopsy to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology with the claims folder for study and an opinion as to the correct diagnosis of the tumor and whether or not there was a reasonable probability that the tumor was related to X-ray exposure. Pertinent parts of the reply are as follows: CASE NO. 4 Type of Injury: Metastatic Carcinoma. BVA's Decision: Denial Affirmed. | It was common in teaching the technicians to teach them positioning on each other. However, from personal experience during World War H, no single technician would have been used more than a very few times, fewer than the number of exposures that many patients received during the course of treatment under roentgenographic control. Sufficient radiation to produce a neoplasm from a diagnostic machine would produce a visible skin burn, visible at the time of physical discharge from Date of Decision: 1970. Appellant's Allegation: That the veteran’s death from diffuse metastatic carcinoma was due to exposure to excessive X-ray radiation sustained while he was an X-ray technician during his World War Hl service. Facts: The veteran’s active service extended from January 1942 to February 1946. No pertinent abnormality was reported on examination prior to his separation from active service. The veteran was hospitalized in 1968. Hospital records showed that a biopsy specimen supplied from operative procedures and from bone marrow were reviewed by the pathology department of the hospital and it was felt that the specimen most likely represented a soft tissue sarcoma, possibly arising from skeletal muscle. The bone marrow aspiration showed the presence of a similar tumor. Following the above evaluation the patient was started on a course of chemotherapy. The veteran died in February 1969 at the age of 49 from diffuse metastatic sarcoma, At the time of his death service connection was not in effect for any disability. In a statement of March 1969, the appellant stated that her husband had been an X-ray technician while in service and during his training for this speciality he became violently il! and was hospitalized in Army Hospitals. She added that this was then thought to be due to overirradiation while training. She related that cancer was diagnosed in 1967 and his condition got continuously worse until his death. She said that while he was in X-ray school he was constantly being X- rayed and received excessive amounts of radiation. She stated in a subsequent communication that he had received a 12 weeks’ X-ray technician’s course in 1942 at the Army Medical Center, Washington, DC. Evidence indicated that after an extensive search of Army hospital records there was no record of the veteran ever having been hospitalized between January 1942 and December 1946 in Washington, D.C. Evidence further indicated that the veteran did have one hospitalization near Washington, D.C. for four days for an acute nasopharyngitis. Records of that hospitalization showed no evidence regarding radiation overexposure. Medical Evidence: The BVA referred specimens from the veteran’s bone 24 the service, and constantly visible subsequently. For the last fifty years, the only known association between the practice of radiology and neoplasmsis the higher incidence of leukemia among radiologists, generally those that are doing a great deal of fluoroscopy. (Before that, skin cancers developed on the radiation burned hands of older radiologists.) Neither of these events occurred with this patient, nor does the patient have the appropriate type of malignancy .... In view of these facts, the staff does not see how it is possible for tadiation to have produced a malignant tumor in the scapular area over twenty years after discharge from the service, on the basis of four years as a radiologic technician who never had any evidence of a burn, was never hospitalized for radiation, and does not have the type of neoplasm that is known to be associated with radiation. If radiation had played a role, one would have to assume that he stood with his upper back to diagnostic equipment for great periods of time, since his neoplasm is stated to have arisen in the back. With respect to a lack of evidence that the veteran had ever received an overex posure to radiation the report further stated: if he had ever been overexposed to radiation, it is expected (from the manner in which the schools were run) that this would have been recorded, and that he would have been hospitalized and studied. The lack of any records speaks clearly against any such excessive exposure. Findings of the BVA and Basis for Decision: \n finding that the evidence did not establish a causal relationship between exposure to X-ray radiation during his active service and the development of a malignant tumor many years following his release from such service the Board said in pertinent part: Jt is the defined and consistently applied policy of the Veterans Administration to administer the law under a broad interpretation, consistent, however, with the facts shown in every case. When, after careful consideration of all procurable and assembled data, a reasonable doubt arises regarding service origin, the degree of disability, or any other point, such doubt will be resolved in favor of the claimant. By reasonable doubt is meant one which exists by reason of the fact that 25