Many American Physicians Have Stopped Offering Their Patients a Clinical Breast Exam (CBE)

Unfortunately, many women do not get a breast examination as part of their routine periodic health care.

In 1987, a survey in five parts of the United States found that 95 percent of women who had a mammogram also had a Clinical Breast Examination (also called a CBE). A resurvey in the same five regions in 1992 found that only 87 percent of women had a CBE with their mammogram.

Surveys in other parts of the United States in the mid-1990’s found that only about 76 percent had a CBE with their mammogram, and a study just after 2000 found that in some regions the rate had dropped to 51 percent. Only half of clinicians did a clinical breast exam in addition to ordering a mammogram.

Before women accept that they will not have a CBE, they should be informed that mammograms miss about one out of six breast cancers and it takes only 2 minutes to do a basic breast exam.

Women who do not have a CBE are at risk to have breast cancer missed if they have a negative mammogram.