We observed that variant rs2853677 was strongly associated with non-small cell lung cancer and leukemia risk with odds ratio (OR) =1.8 (1.03–3.2 at 95% CI); p value (adjusted) =0.03 in NSCLC and 2.7 (1.4–5.2 at 95% CI); p value (adjusted) = 0.002 in leukemia, signifying that TERT polymorphism plays a crucial role in the pathological process of multiple cancers. Here, TERT is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.