What is a "clinical breast exam"?

What is a "clinical breast exam"?

A clinical breast exam is when your physician examines your breasts, to look for any changes, any lumps or anything concerning for cancer. Clinical breast exams are typically performed once a year, before your screening mammogram, so if there's any abnormalities on exam, they can focus on that area when they do the mammogram. It's important to have your physician examine your breasts, because again, a physician has felt breast cancer before, and most women have not, and so they don't know exactly what feels like cancer and what doesn't feel like cancer. It's true that a woman will pick up changes in her breast earlier than a physician will, but the question is: are those changes necessarily cancer? This is one of the main reasons why the studies looking at breast self-examination have not definitively shown a benefit at preventing cancers or catching cancers earlier.