A bout of mild pelvic pain and multiple UTIs in a middle-aged woman were linked to complications — namely, a loose screw — from pubic bone surgery almost two decades prior, doctors report.

The 56-year-old patient visited a urologist in Greece for gross haematuria and mentioned her other seemingly innocuous symptoms over the past two years.

The case authors said her vital signs were normal and that she had recently undergone a total left hip replacement.

Clinical examination confirmed mild pain in the lower abdomen, while a urine test was unremarkable except for pyuria and “a few red blood cells”, they wrote in the American Journal of Case Reports.