It was found that the expression levels of ESR1, SPP1 and FOSB genes in the 22 hub genes had a significant impact on the survival time of liver cancer patients(p < 0.05), with HR values of 0.88, 1.1 and 0.88, respectively, indicating that ESR1 and FOSB are low-risk genes while SPP1 is high-risk gene. Here, SPP1 is linked to liver cancer.