Clinical Breast Exam
What is a clinical breast exam?
A clinical breast exam (CBE) is a physical exam of your breasts done by a health care provider. It’s often done during your yearly medical check-up.
A clinical breast exam should be performed by a health care provider well-trained in the technique. This may be a doctor, nurse practitioner or other medical staff. Not all health care providers have this training.
A trained health care provider should carefully feel your breasts, underarms and the area just below your clavicle (collar bone) for any changes or abnormalities, such as a lump. The provider should visually check your breasts while you are sitting up and physically examine your breasts while you are lying down.
If a clinical breast exam isn’t offered at your check-up and you‘d like one, ask your health care provider to perform one (or refer you to someone who can).
Sources for images: National Cancer Institute and Susan G. Komen®
Clinical breast exam screening recommendations
Some, but not all, breast cancer screening recommendations from major health organizations include clinical breast exams.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recommends women have a clinical breast exam [3]:
- Every 1-3 years starting at age 25
- Every year starting at age 40
However, the American Cancer Society doesn’t recommend clinical breast exam for breast cancer screening [2]. And the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force feels there’s not enough scientific evidence to recommend for or against clinical breast exam [17].
Learn more about breast cancer screening recommendations for women at average risk.
Follow-up after an abnormal clinical breast exam
For most women, a clinical breast exam will find no signs of breast cancer.
If your exam does find something abnormal, you’ll need follow-up tests to check whether or not the finding is breast cancer.
Learn about follow-up after an abnormal clinical breast exam.
False positive results and clinical breast exam
False positive results occur when a clinical breast exam finds something that looks or feels like cancer but turns out not to be cancer.
Getting a false positive result leads to follow-up tests, and can cause fear and worry [17,34]. However, the goal of clinical breast exam is to find as many cancers as possible, not to avoid false positive results.
Updated 03/17/25
This content is regularly reviewed by an expert panel including researchers, practicing clinicians and patient advocates.