Background: Recently, it has been under consideration that the anesthetic techniques used during general anesthesia may have influence over the development of acute kidney injury and other postoperative outcomes. For this reason, we aimed to compare the effects of different regional blockade techniques (peripheral nerve blockade versus neuraxial epidural) on occurrence of acute kidney injury (AKI) after thoracic and abdominal surgeries under general anesthesia.Methods: In a single-center retrospective cohort study, 2846 patients undergoing elective thoracic or abdominal surgery during a period of seven years were included into the study. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of AKI postoperatively within a seven-day period in-hospital. Perioperative data were obtained and analyzed to provide data for secondary endpoints that include all other outcome related parameters. To reduce the influence of potential confounding factors, propensity score (PS) analysis was performed. Multivariate logistic regression models examined the selection of an epidural or PNB in general anesthesia before and after propensity score weighting analysis.Results: Of the 2846 patients, 7.3% (207 cases) suffered AKI. The odds ratio of AKI for PNB (epidural as reference) was 0.61 (0.40~0.83), P = 0.006. After propensity score matching, the odds ratio for PNB was [0.49 (0.28~0.70), P = 0.001]. All other outcome related parameters were considered and evaluated.Conclusions: After PS matching analysis, there is no difference in secondary outcome analysis of groups that received PNB or epidural neuraxial blockade who were both under general anesthesia. However, patients who received PNB under general anesthesia showed lower incidence of AKI within seven days postoperatively.