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Introduction: Malignant neoplasm of the breast is responsible for 20% of cancer incidence and 14% of all deaths associated with neoplasms in women. The Brazilian Ministry of Health defined strategies and developed consensus documents with recommendations for the prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care for breast cancer. Despite this definition, the health secretariats create their own protocols or use other recommendations. Objective: To verify the existing protocols and compare them with the Ministry of Health's. Methods: A literature review was performed using PubMed, Scopus, Lilacs, SciELo and Google Scholar databases with the following keywords: Breast Neoplasms; Unified Health System; Clinical Protocols, Protocol. Results: 123 results are found; of these, 44 were selected for complete reading, remaining 10 papers for this review. It was identified that the health secretariats' protocols diverge from the national protocol regarding risk factors, work of primary care, age indicated for the beginning of preventive exams and indicated periodicity of exams. Conclusion: According to this review, there are divergences between the guidelines of the municipalities and the national one regarding breast cancer. The lack of knowledge on the national protocol can cause unnecessary expenses. It is necessary to standardize or base the actions taken for the development and evaluation of programs for the prevention and treatment of breast cancer, aiming at reducing the mortality resulting from this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]