The aim of this study was to examine university students' attitudes and their level of knowledge of cancer and cancer patients considering students' faculty and gender. The next aim of this study was to examine the relationship among cancer knowledge, intentions for proactive behavior toward cancer and different attitudes toward cancer. Furthermore, one of the goals of this study was to perform a qualitative analysis of answers to a question what does the word cancer each participant associate with. Participants were 229 female and 51 male students from different universities in Zagreb, on average 22 years old (M = 22.41, SD = 2.51). The study was conducted by an online questionnaire including: ''Questionnaire of Attitudes in Cancer'', ''Cancer-related Perceived Stigma Questionnaire version 1.0'', ''Cancer knowledge scale'', sociodemographic questions and a question regarding previous experience of living with the cancer patient. Research findings suggested that the students have good knowledge of cancer and cancer patients. In addition, they think that they have certain influence on contracting cancer and that cancer is curable. Also, they show high level of negative emotional respones towards cancer and they mostly accept stereotypical attitudes towards cancer patients. However, they show low level of discrimination toward cancer patients and decline intentions for proactive behavior towards cancer. Significant positive correlation was found between cancer knowledge and believing in cancer curability, while intentions for proactive behaviour toward cancer were significantly positively correlated with negative emotional responses, believing in cancer curability and possible influence on contracting cancer. Hierarchical regression analysis found that experience of living with the cancer patient, negative emotional responses and believing in possible influence on contracting cancer were positive predictors, while cigarette consumption was a negative predictor of intentions for proactive behaviour towards cancer. Significant differences were also found in gender and different faculties regarding cancer knowledge. Qulitative data analysis showed that students mostly indicated death as what they associate cancer with.