In the prospective studies, we first evaluated case–control differences for the candidate genes and observed significant association with LC only for one candidate (TMEM176A) for all LC and NSCLC cases compared to all controls (OR = 1.19 for both; 95% CI = 1.03–1.37; 1.03–1.38, respectively) (Supplementary Table S5). Here, TMEM176A is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.