Introduction: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a risk factor for several adverse clinical outcomes, including mortality. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is one of the most common extrapulmonary complications in ARDS. Despite the high incidence of AKI in patients with ARDS, the lung-kidney crosstalk is not yet fully understood. Objective: This scoping review aims to describe the association between ARDS and AKI in critically ill patients. Methods: We will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Based on the Participants, Concept, and Context framework, we will include studies that investigated critically ill patients with ARDS (Participants), describe AKI-related outcomes (Concept), and were conducted in hospitals (Context). A comprehensive literature search will be performed using the MEDLINE, Embase, and LILACS databases without date or language restrictions from database inception until January 2024. Observational studies with retrospective, prospective, and case-control designs will be considered. Two independent reviewers will screen titles and abstracts and perform full-text reviews. Data extraction will be performed by the main reviewer and checked by a second one. Data on the diagnosis of ARDS and follow-up time for AKI-related outcomes will be extracted from the selected evidence. The quantitative results will be synthesized and presented in tables and figures along with a narrative summary. Ethics and dissemination: There is no ethical approval requirement for this scoping review. On completion, the review will be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal and presented at a health conference.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study receives funding from the Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP), grant #22/01769-5.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.

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I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.

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The datasets to be analyzed during the current study will be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.