For about a year, a 48-year-old woman treated at a hospital in Changde, China, cycled through treatments for what doctors thought was a stubborn urinary tract infection, and even possible tuberculosis. The real culprit turned out to be a metal contraceptive ring she believed had been taken out of her body years earlier.
The case, published Oct. 7 in Frontiers in Medicine by a urologist and a gynecologist at Changde Hospital, Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, describes a ring-shaped intrauterine device (IUD) sitting completely outside the woman's uterus. It was lodged against the lower end of her right ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder, which had narrowed into a fixed stricture. Above the blockage, her ureter and kidney were severely swollen.
