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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is one of the most promising recently developed methods for non-invasive in vivo characterization of biological highly scattering tissues. However, one of the drawbacks of the pure OCT imaging is that it is not sensitive to changes in metabolism. This may impact derived information and consecutive diagnostics, because pathological changes of tissue structure are accompanied with changes in metabolic activity or functional state in these areas even if there is not yet strongly evident structural change. Therefore, it is desirable to combine early detection of tissue malformations by OCT with other techniques, capable to detect and evaluate their functional state. One of suitable candidates for such non-invasive optical functional imaging is detection of laser induced autofluorescence, which could provide information about rate of biological and chemical processes in living cells. As an example, the cells in proliferative state (with increased metabolic activity or during mitosis) show more intensive NIR fluorescence than the cells that are not proliferative, because of increased concentration of free porphyrins. In presented study we used OCT and laser induced NIR autofluorescence imaging for detection and evaluation of changes in areas of naevus and injuries in group of volunteers. The fusion of information on structural and functional state of biotissues provided by the two mentioned complementary methods may enhance the diagnostics power of their prospective clinical use. Firstly the fluorescence of area of naevus and injuries, excited by 630 nm was taken by CCD camera and then was naevus scanned by OCT. The findings of both methods were compared and correlated. In the case of naevus the obtained results were reviewed with histological treatment of the same area.
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