Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives, suffered an injury on a trip to Luxembourg and has been admitted to a hospital for evaluation, her office said in a statement on Friday.

Pelosi, 84, is the first woman to serve as speaker of the House and had also been a longtime leader of the House Democratic caucus.

“While traveling with a bipartisan congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation,” a Pelosi spokesperson, Ian Krager, said in a statement.

Krager added: “Speaker Emerita Pelosi is currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals. She continues to work.”

The San Francisco congresswoman stepped down from her role as speaker – a powerful position second in line to the presidency after the vice-president – in 2023 but she has continued to serve in the House.

She was re-elected in November to another two-year term beginning on 3 January.

Pelosi played a key role in passing Joe Biden’s sweeping $1tn infrastructure bill in 2022 and famously feuded with Donald Trump during his first four years in office, culminating with the moment when she tore up his State of the Union speech on national television in 2020.

Pelosi has been a prominent figure in Washington over a tenure spanning seven presidential administrations. She first served as House speaker from 2007 to 2011, then regained the job in 2019 after her party took back control of the chamber in the 2018 midterm elections.

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Democrats lost their House majority in 2022, and Republicans will again hold a narrow majority next year when President-elect Trump returns to the White House.