PORTABLE SYSTEM FOR DETECTING SKIN ABNORMALITIES BASED ON CHARACTERISTIC AUTOFLUORESCENCE

A lightweight hand-held skin abnormality detection system includes a source of excitation light that causes tissue under examination to produce fluorescence light. The fluorescence light produced along with the beam of reference light is provided to a beam splitter which divides the fluorescence light and the reference light into separate optical channels. Each optical channel produces an image of the tissue under examination. A passive optical combiner superimposes the image produced by each optical channel for viewing by a user.