Abstract: Disclosed therein are a medical image reading assistance apparatus and method for assisting the reading of chest medical images. The medical image reading assistance apparatus includes a computing system, and the computing system includes at least one processor. The at least one processor segments airways and blood vessels from a medical image including the lungs, segments small regions corresponding to a plurality of intensity sections divided and set based on at least one of the property and state of tissue in a lung area image generated by excluding the airways and the blood vessels from the medical image, and visualizes the distributions of the small regions corresponding to the plurality of intensity sections within the lung area image.