Perioperative anemia is an important risk factor for cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CSA-AKI). Nonetheless, the severity of the anemia and the time in the perioperative period in which the hemoglobin level should be considered as a risk factor is conflicting. The present study introduces the concept of perioperative hemoglobin area under the curve (pHb-AUC) as a surrogate marker of the evolution of perioperative hemoglobin concentration. Through a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data, we assessed this new variable as a risk factor for the development of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery in 966 adult patients who underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass, at twenty-three academic hospitals in Spain. Exclusion criteria were patients on renal replacement therapy, who needed a reoperation because of bleeding and/or with missing perioperative hemoglobin or creatinine values. Using a multivariate regression analysis, we found that a pHb-AUC <19 g/dL was an independent risk factor for CSA-AKI even after adjustment for intraoperative red blood cell transfusion (OR 1.41, p <0.05). It was also associated with mortality (OR 2.48, p <0.01) and prolonged hospital length of stay (4.67 ± 0.99 days, p <0.001)