Oral cavity cancer

Oral cavity cancer is rated under diagnostic code 7818, which covers malignant skin neoplasms other than malignant melanoma. VA does not assign a fixed percentage for the cancer itself. Instead, the rating depends on how the cancer is treated and what effects remain afterward.

If your treatment is comparable to treatment used for systemic malignancies — meaning systemic chemotherapy, radiation therapy more extensive than to the skin alone, or surgery more extensive than wide local excision — VA assigns a 100 percent rating from the date that treatment begins. That 100 percent continues until VA conducts a mandatory examination six months after treatment ends. If there has been no local recurrence or metastasis at that point, VA then rates any remaining residuals. If treatment is confined to the skin only, the 100 percent rating does not apply.

Residuals are rated as disfigurement of the head, face, or neck (DC 7800, with ratings of 10, 30, 50, or 80 percent depending on the number of affected features or characteristics of disfigurement), scars not of the head, face, or neck with or without soft tissue damage (DC 7801 or 7802), or painful and unstable scars (DC 7804). Ratings may also reflect impairment of function. Any change in rating after the post-treatment examination is subject to the protections of 38 CFR 3.105(e).