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The VA orders this exam to verify your diagnosis and measure how severe it is right now. It can shape your rating and your monthly compensation — but it does not decide your claim. A rating specialist weighs it against your full record, and if the exam does not reflect your condition, you can say so and ask the VA to correct it.
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A serious bone marrow disorder where scar tissue (fibrosis) replaces the normal bone marrow, leading to anemia, enlarged spleen, fatigue, and bone pain. DC 7718 covers essential thrombocythemia and primary myelofibrosis together, and it rates on the TREATMENT you require and the blood counts that treatment maintains — not on spleen size, hemoglobin, or how bad you feel.
The percentages this diagnostic code can be rated at. Which one applies depends on the findings — no tool here can tell you in advance.
Rated under 38 CFR 4.117, DC 7718. The examiner records findings on the DBQ; a rating specialist makes the decision.
| Rating | Rating criteria | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | Asymptomatic | You have a confirmed myelofibrosis diagnosis but it is producing nothing right now — no anemia, no enlarged spleen, no night sweats or bone pain, and no medication for it. You are on observation only. DC 7718 prints this 0 percent level itself, as "Asymptomatic," so it is a rung of the code rather than one § 4.31 has to supply. A 0 percent means no monthly payment, but the condition is service connected and on record, and a later increase runs from that date. Compensable levels begin once the condition requires myelosuppressive therapy, chemotherapy, or interferon. |
What supports this level
| ||
| 30% | Requiring continuous or intermittent myelosuppressive therapy, or chemotherapy, or interferon treatment to maintain platelet count of 200,000-400,000, or white blood cell (WBC) count of 4,000-10,000 | Your myelofibrosis requires myelosuppressive therapy, chemotherapy, or interferon — continuously or on and off — and on that treatment your counts are held inside the normal range: platelets between 200,000 and 400,000, or a white blood cell count between 4,000 and 10,000. The rating turns on the treatment plus the counts it maintains, so the medication record and the serial CBCs are what carry it. |
What supports this level
| ||
| 70% | Requiring continuous or intermittent myelosuppressive therapy, or chemotherapy, or interferon treatment to maintain platelet count <500 × 10⁹/L | You are on the same kinds of treatment — myelosuppressive therapy, chemotherapy, or interferon, continuous or intermittent — but what it holds is a platelet count under 500 × 10⁹/L (500,000) rather than the normal range. The looser target is the point: the treatment is doing less, so the code pays more. Bring the counts drawn while you were on the treatment. |
What supports this level
| ||
| 100% | Requiring either continuous myelosuppressive therapy, or, for six months following hospital admission for any of the following treatments: peripheral blood or bone marrow stem cell transplant, or chemotherapy, or interferon treatment | You require continuous myelosuppressive therapy; or you are inside the six months following hospital admission for a peripheral blood or bone marrow stem cell transplant, chemotherapy, or interferon treatment. Note (2) to DC 7718 provides that a mandatory VA examination is done six months after discharge — or six months after chemotherapy ends — and any reduction that follows is subject to 38 CFR 3.105(e). |
What supports this level
| ||
The middle column is our transcription of the criteria at 38 CFR 4.117, DC 7718, condensed for reading. Read the section itself on eCFR before relying on the exact wording. The items under each level are the kinds of evidence that document it — not a VA checklist, and not a prediction of which level applies to you.
Building the claim around spleen size, hemoglobin, or how bad the fatigue and night sweats are. Those are real, but DC 7718 does not name any of them — every compensable rung is written around the treatment you require and the platelet or white cell count it maintains. Submit the medication record and the serial CBCs.
Not getting the exact treatment dates into the file. The 100 percent level runs for six months following hospital admission for a stem cell transplant, chemotherapy, or interferon treatment, so the admission and discharge dates decide when that period starts and when the mandatory VA examination is due.
Letting a leukemic transformation stay rated here. Note (1) to DC 7718 directs that if the condition undergoes leukemic transformation it be evaluated as leukemia under DC 7703.
Not connecting myelofibrosis to benzene, ionizing radiation, or other chemical exposures during military service.
Not filing for secondary conditions from splenomegaly (portal hypertension, early satiety) or from treatment side effects (immune suppression, anemia). A splenectomy is separately evaluated under DC 7706 and combined.
These apply to every C&P exam, whatever the condition.