The invention relates to the identification and visualization of the spatial distribution of particular tissue states in histological tissue sections from mass spectrometric signals acquired with spatial resolution. The invention proposes a method by means of which regions of the tissue with similar mass spectra are found automatically, and it is further proposed that mass spectra of these regions are summed in order to improve the spectral quality to such an extent that known markers for tissue degenerations can be identified with increased certainty. Regions of similar mass spectra can be interconnected on a large scale, but can also be isolated from each other on a small scale.