An agitated saline contrast test (ASCT, ASC, or AST), also agitated saline contrast study, agitated saline bubble study, agitated saline bubble test, bubble study, or bubble test, is a technique used to obtain additional information from an echocardiogram

Echocardiography

An echocardiogram, often referred to in the medical community as a cardiac ECHO or simply an ECHO, is a sonogram of the heart . Also known as a cardiac ultrasound, it uses standard ultrasound techniques to image two-dimensional slices of the heart...

.

The technique uses a saline

Saline (medicine)

In medicine, saline is a general term referring to a sterile solution of sodium chloride in water but is only sterile when it is to be placed intravenously, otherwise, a saline solution is a salt water solution...

 solution (salt water) which is agitated by mixing it back and forth quickly between two syringe

Syringe

A syringe is a simple pump consisting of a plunger that fits tightly in a tube. The plunger can be pulled and pushed along inside a cylindrical tube , allowing the syringe to take in and expel a liquid or gas through an orifice at the open end of the tube...

s. This creates very small bubbles in the saline which, when injected intravenously

Intravenous therapy

Intravenous therapy or IV therapy is the infusion of liquid substances directly into a vein. The word intravenous simply means "within a vein". Therapies administered intravenously are often called specialty pharmaceuticals...

 into the arm, can be seen as they pass through the heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

's chambers. These bubbles can be followed in the heart ultrasonically

Medical ultrasonography

Diagnostic sonography is an ultrasound-based diagnostic imaging technique used for visualizing subcutaneous body structures including tendons, muscles, joints, vessels and internal organs for possible pathology or lesions...

, creating an echocardiogram, to determine if any bubbles do not follow the normal blood flow pathways.