How small a lump would be detectable by a clinician?
In general, breast lumps found by a clinician will be larger than those found by a woman doing a routine breast self-exam. Clinicians aren’t as good at detecting lumps as the woman herself, because they don’t know a woman’s breast as well as she does. Most clinicians also spend two minutes or less on breast exams. This may help explain why most lumps are found by the woman herself.
