OBJECTIVES: The outcome of implant treatment in periodontally compromised partially edentulous patients has not been completely clarified. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to perform, applying a systematic methodology, a comprehensive and critical review of the prospective studies published in English up to and including August 2006, regarding the short-term (<5 years) and long-term (>or=5 years) prognosis of osseointegrated implants placed in periodontally compromised partially edentulous patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Using The National Library Of Medicine and Cochrane Oral Health Group databases, a literature search for articles published up to and including August 2006 was performed. At the first phase of selection the titles and abstracts and at the second phase full papers were screened independently and in duplicate by the three reviewers (I. K. K., S. K., I. F.). RESULTS: The search provided 2987 potentially relevant titles and abstracts. At the first phase of evaluation, 2956 publications were rejected based on title and abstract. At the second phase, the full text of the remaining 31 publications was retrieved for more detailed evaluation. Finally, 15 prospective studies were selected, including seven short-term and eight long-term studies. Because of considerable discrepancies among these studies, meta-analysis was not performed. CONCLUSIONS: No statistically significant differences in both short-term and long-term implant survival exist between patients with a history of chronic periodontitis and periodontally healthy individuals. Patients with a history of chronic periodontitis may exhibit significantly greater long-term probing pocket depth, peri-implant marginal bone loss and incidence of peri-implantitis compared with periodontally healthy subjects. Even though the short-term implant prognosis for patients treated for aggressive periodontitis is acceptable, on a long-term basis the matter is open to question. Alterations in clinical parameters around implants and teeth in aggressive periodontitis patients may not follow the same pattern, in contrast to what has been reported for chronic periodontitis patients. However, as only three studies comprising patients treated for aggressive periodontitis were selected, more studies, specially designed, are required to evaluate implant prognosis in this subtype of periodontitis. As the selected publications exhibited considerable discrepancies, more studies, uniformly designed, preferably longitudinal, prospective and controlled, would be important.