In summary, our study provides a novel perspective on the potential role of MMP-9 and MMP-2 to promote invasion and metastasis of HCC and reveals that patients with ruptured FC aggregated a significant number of macrophages and macrophage-derived MMP-9 and MMP-2 in the ruptured FC area, which could destroy the FC and caused HCC cells to invade from the tumor area to the paracancerous liver tissues through the ruptured FC area. Here, MMP9 is linked to neoplasm.