Abstract Background The global burden of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is increasing, negatively impacting social health and economies. The discovery of novel and valuable biomarkers for the early diagnosis and therapeutic guidance of HCC is urgently needed. Methods Extracellular matrix (ECM)-related gene sets, transcriptome data and mutation profiles were downloaded from the Matrisome Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-LIHC datasets. Coexpression analysis was initially performed with the aim of identifying ECM-related lncRNAs (r > 0.4,...