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Professional Courtesy: Surviving Prostate Cancer Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

Dr. Tom Trinkner is a well-known dentist and lecturer with a special focus on cosmetic dentistry. He currently practices full time in Columbia, South Carolina, and some of the highlights from his career to date include: teaching at Pankey Institute, Pac Live, New York University and Las Vegas Institute, authoring multiple articles and numerous presentations to dentists. He is also a prostate cancer survivor. I recently had the privilege to speak with Tom about his dental career and the sobering effect of a cancer diagnosis. Tom had missed his routine physical because life got in the way, and a reminder from a physician patient to get his PSA level checked saved his life. This month is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and I hope this interview serves as a reminder to any male dental professionals to get yourself checked.



How do you spend your time in terms of practicing dentistry, writing and speaking?
Trinkner: I am still relatively involved in the Journal for the Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry mostly through e-mails and coming up with ideas for the publication. My general lecture time has significantly diminished partly due to prostate cancer. It was kind of a wake-up call for me to really focus more on my kids who are now eight and five, and my wife. I have had the privilege to meet the best people in dentistry. My core group of friends is really what pulled me through that period of time.

Do you have an associate or do you solo practice?
Trinkner: I am solo. I have two hygiene full time, two front-desk and one amazing assistant.

What would you say is the most exciting trend in dentistry today?
Trinkner: Clinically, I continue to be fascinated with some of the trends in micro-dentistry. Micro preps and catching things really early. Some of the tools we are using now are allowing us to do that. I try to keep my practice very simple.

I want to talk a little bit about your prostate cancer diagnosis.
Trinkner: I don't think I had any unusual symptoms compared to any normal 50-year-old guy at the time. I felt good. I have always worked out. One of my patients, an oncologist who I love, came in and told me he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was really shaken. He said, "I want you to make sure you have your physical. Go make sure you have your PSA checked."

I went in and everything else checked out great. I went home, and I was called back by my doctor the very next day. He said, "Your PSA is up. You're 3.7 and the last time you had a 1.7." I went in to have it redone and he called me the next day and said, "You have gone up 2/10. I didn't feel anything on your digital exam but I want you to go ahead and see a urologist."

I went in to see the urologist and a few weeks later he said, "Digitally you are fine but with your numbers, age, what your PSA is you have a 28 percent chance of having prostate cancer. So one in four would have this. I want you to have a biopsy."

I went home after the biopsy and thought it would only take a few days to get results. It was two weeks. I was sweating bullets because it had taken so long to get my path report back.

When I went in I thought he was going to tell me I was fine. Instead he said, "I hate to tell you this, but you are positive for cancer. You have prostate cancer." I could hardly move. I was so taken back.

He was able to give the prognosis based on those biopsies?
Trinkner: Yes. I was a type one, an early stage one. There is a lot of information within the pathology report that tells you what severity you have. It also defines the risk to how confined it is to the capsule of the prostate.



Is the course of treatment clear or is this just one of those things where you have multiple ways to treat this?
Trinkner: Multiple ways. The prostate is going to swell to a different size. If you are going to have a procedure – like the prostate removed – you have to have a couple months to healing. I could not do any form of treatment for a few months. It's a waiting game.

I spent the next two weeks researching prostate cancer.

Fortunately, I had a patient in my practice who was a cardiologist, who also taught and did a lot with robotics in cardiology. He left to go do a fellowship in a hospital in Atlanta. I called him and told him my situation. He referred me to a friend at DaVinci program here at St. Joseph's hospital in Atlanta and he does 10 robotic surgeries on prostates a week. He has done 2,500 of them.

I scheduled an appointment in September and I went back a month later. I went in and had my surgery on a Thursday morning, and I was up moving around by Thursday afternoon. The next morning they took out my chest tube. It is an amazing surgery. There are four hands working at the same time. It is amazing technology. My pathologist called me on Tuesday and told me I have a three percent chance of having recurrent cancer from my prostate.

How many days did you lose out of your practice?
Trinkner: I missed seven days of work. I had surgery on Thursday. I took the whole following week off and came back to work the following Monday. I went a little slower. My energy wasn't quite what it was.

Start to finish you were dealing with this process for nearly a year. What lessons did you learn?
Trinkner: I feel very blessed that I caught it early. It's an easy test. Even through the biopsy it is an easy test. So there really is no excuse not to do it. And if you have to have surgery, if you pick the right person, the right place and you take care of yourself before the surgery, it doesn't have to be difficult.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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