For many women who face a hysterectomy, there's a less invasive, safe and effective alternative. But it's probably a mystery to most of them.

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Health Reporter Micki Flowers reveals the procedure that a local expert tells us women aren't hearing about from their doctors.

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Many women get uterine fibroids that cause pain and heavy bleeding. They're the reason for 200,000 hysterectomies every year.

Now a less invasive treatment, with a much faster recovery period may give most of those women the relief they need, and help them avoid a hysterectomy.

Like many other women, Bonnie Greenberg put up with monthly bleeding that got increasingly heavier, and more prolonged.

The cause: fibroids, non-cancerous tumors on her uterus. She held out against the surgery she knew could treat her -- a hysterectomy.

"I was frightened and I was really concerned that that was going to be the only alternative that I had," Greenberg said.

But a hysterectomy seemed inevitable the day she was rushed to emergency where doctors got life-threatening hemorrhaging under control.

"It was my understanding that if I started hemorrhaging again there really wasn't an alternative. They'd just have to go in and do the hysterectomy," she said.

No one told her then about a minimally invasive procedure called embolization that could solve her problem and be as safe as a hysterectomy.

But unlike a hysterectomy, a woman doesn't have to lose her uterus.

Many local hospitals offer the procedure. But Dr. Torrence Andrews, Chief of Interventional Radiology at the University of Washington and Harborview says he's heard from too many women who've said they didn't hear about it from their doctors.

"They were not informed about embolization as an option before they chose hysterectomy. And in those cases they've often been very angry," Dr. Andrews said.

Dr. Andrews performs the procedure. It's been around locally at least six years, and performed on over 30,000 women worldwide.

It works like this: With the patient sedated, a small catheter is painlessly inserted through a small incision in the groin.

The catheter is threaded to vessels that supply blood to the fibroids. Then small plastic particles are released, cutting off blood flow to the fibroids and shrinking them in nearly all patients.

"Approximately 85 percent of women who have embolization will within six months be either completely free of their symptoms or significantly improved and no longer require any other treatment," Dr. Andrews said.

It's what Bonnie Greenberg hoped for. After a second harrowing trip to emergency, she called her gynecologist and learned about embolization.

"I knew nothing of it and have talked to, you know, friends and you know other women since that have never heard of it either," she said.

Dr. Andrews performed her embolization.

"She kept her uterus and she's had a complete resolution of her bleeding symptoms," Dr. Andrews said.

The procedure isn't without side effects, including cramping, slight fever and spotty bleeding.

Bonnie Greenberg says those were temporary. She's grateful to have learned about the alternative in time.

"Oh, it was a relief."

Experts emphasize that women who need fibroids removed, but want to get pregnant should consider myomectomy, a surgery that also preserves the uterus. It's still the best option.