The kidney in respiratory failure and mechanical ventilation.

Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute kidney injury (AKI) are complications often encountered in the setting of critical illness. Both forms of end-organ injury commonly occur in similar settings of systemic inflammatory response syndrome, shock, and evolving multiple organ dysfunction. Distant organ effects of apparently isolated injuries to the lungs, gut, and kidneys have all been discovered in recent years. In this review of the emerging evidence of deleterious bidirectional organ crosstalk between the lungs and kidney, we will focus on the role of ventilator-induced kidney injury in the pathogenesis of AKI in patients with ALI.