A system and method for the in situ discrimination of healthy and diseased tissue. A fiberoptic based probe is employed to direct ultraviolet illumination onto a tissue specimen and to collect the fluorescent response radiation. The response radiation is observed at three selected wavelengths, about 403 nm, about 414 nm, and about 431 nm. The intensities of the 403 nm and 414 mn radiation are normalized using the 431 nm intensity. A score is determined using the ratios in a linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The tissue under examination is resected or not, based on the outcome of the LDA.