Autofluorescence imaging including an additional light source

There is described a device for the picture-providing diagnosis of tissue with the selective application of two diagnosis methods, specifically an operating mode for the picture-providing white light diagnosis and an operating mode for the picture-providing auto-fluorescence. The device has a light source (2) whose light is led to the tissue via an endoscope (3), wherein in the endoscope there is arranged a picture transmission unit (4) which leads the picture of the tissue (1) to a colour camera (5). The colour camera comprises three sensors (6, 7, 8) allocated to the colour regions red, green and blue which are in connection with a picture processor unit (9) which provides a monitor (10) with the picture signals. For increasing the sensitivity and specifity of the diagnosis device with the picture-providing autofluorescence diagnosis of pre-malignant and early-malignant tissue with respect to benign tissue as well as for increasing the picture quality it is envisaged that the light source (2) apart from the fluorescence excitation light additionally further emits so much red light that the red light remitted at the tissue significantly dominates the red fluorescence light and the picture processor unit (9) of the camera contains means with which the electrical signal originating from the sensor for the red picture part share in the operating mode of the picture-providing autofluorescence diagnosis is damped in a manner such that benign tissue appears in a strong green and early-malignant and malign tissue appears in a strong red. The manner of proceeding permits for both diagnosis methods the application of above all things a 3-chip camera which is conventional with regard to the optical camera head specification.