Objective To investigate the clinical value of acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging in the evaluation of liver functional reserve in patients with hepatic focal lesions. Methods Eighty-six patients with hepatic focal lesions in General Hospital of the People′s Liberation Army from September 2011 to August 2012 were studied. According to Child-Pugh score, 54 of them were classified as grade A, 18 patients were classiifed as grade B, and 14 patients were classiifed as grade C. Seventy patients underwent surgery and 16 patients underwent non-surgical treatment. Shear wave velocity (SWV) values were measured using ARFI technique, and indocyanine green (ICG) clearance tests were also performed to achieve ICG clearance rate constant (ICGK) and ICG retention rate at 15 minutes (ICG15). Correlation between SWV and ICGK, SWV and ICG15 were studied using Pearson correlation, and correlation between SWV and Child-Pugh score were analyzed using Spearman rank correlation. Difference between SWV values of patients underwent surgery and those of patients underwent non-surgical treatment was compared using t-test for independent samples. Analyses of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were performed to investigate the value of ARFI in the evaluation of surgical feasibility for patients with hepatic focal lesion, with the clinical decisions serving as the golden standard. Results There was correlations between SWV and ICGR15, SWV and ICGK, and SWV and Child-Pugh scores (r=0.764,P <0.001;r=-0.686,P=0.000;r=0.864,P=0.000). The SWV of patients who underwent surgery was (2.46±0.45) m/s, and the SWV of patients who underwent non-surgical treatment was (1.54±0.36) m/s, with a signiifcant difference (t=-0.80, P=0.000). The ROC curve analysis demonstrated a highest Youden′s index of 0.775 when the cut-off was 2.06m/s. The corresponding sensitivity was 87.5% and the specificity was 90.0% for ARFI in the diagnosis liver functional reserve deficiency. Conclusion ARFI can effectively evaluate the liver functional reserve in patients with hepatic focal lesions and thus could be beneifcial in the decision of clinical treatment.