Injecting tiny beads into the arteries that feed painful fibroids in the uterus can be better than surgery for most women, even if the long-term risk of complications is higher, researchers reported on Wednesday.

About 30 percent of all women over the age of 30 develop the benign tumors, which are responsible for about 13,000 hysterectomies in Britain alone each year. Fibroids can cause pain, heavy menstrual bleeding, pressure on the bladder, or bowel obstruction.

Hysterectomy once was the only treatment, but now other options are available, including the bead treatment, known as uterine-artery embolization. Once injected, the beads cut off the supply of blood to the fibroids, shrinking or killing them.

The new study, conducted at 27 British hospitals and led by Jonathan Moss of Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow, found that the 106 women who received the treatment fared just as well as the 51 who had the conventional surgery -- either a hysterectomy to remove the uterus or a myomectomy to remove the fibroids.

The patients getting the beads typically spent one day in the hospital, compared to five days for the women receiving the surgery; they also returned to work sooner.

But one year after the operation, the women who received the surgery were a little less likely to still have fibroid-related problems, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Ten of the 106 women in the embolization group needed some type of additional treatment for their symptoms during the first year. "After the first year of follow-up, 11 additional women were admitted for the same indication," the Moss team wrote.

For women whose fibroids are causing problems, "the faster recovery after embolization must be weighed against the need for further treatment in a minority of patients," they said.

Embolization, introduced in 1995, involves cutting into a leg artery and snaking a hollow tube into the blood vessels that feed the fibroids. Doctors then release the beads into the arteries. As the artery narrows, the beads begin to clog it, starving the fibroid of oxygen and nutrients.

One year after treatment, 93 percent of the women who had surgery said they would recommend that option to a friend, while 88 percent who received embolization said they would recommend the technique.

Previous research has shown that after six years, the fibroids return in up to 27 percent of women treated with embolization.