Background: It is expected that about 65,000 new patients will be diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2017 in the United States. Patients with recurrent or advanced or metastatic head and neck do not have good survival due to aggressive and recurrent nature of this cancer. Moreover, cumulative and residual toxicities from previous and ongoing treatments significantly impede quality of remaining part of their life. Currently available chemotherapeutic regimens for this group are derived from the treatments used for the potentially curable disease. These regimens and associated toxicity are obviously not the best matches for the treatment with palliative intent. We here present a retrospective study where we used dose-adjusted chemotherapy specifically for palliative treatment this sub-group of head and neck cancer patients.