Overall age-standardised cancer incidence in Australia is the highest in the world, and this is attributable to melanoma alone. Age-standardised overall cancer incidence is similar to New Zealand, but there is a statistically significant difference between Australia and all other parts of the developed world including North America, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean. United States
In the United States about 9,000 people die from melanoma a year. In 2011 it affected 19.7 per 100,000, and resulted in death in 2.7 per 100,000.In 2013:

71,943 people in the United States were diagnosed with melanomas of the skin, including 42,430 men and 29,513 women. 9,394 people in the United States died from melanomas of the skin, including 6,239 men and 3,155 women.The American Cancer Societys estimates for melanoma incidence in the United States for 2017 are:

About 87,110 new melanomas will be diagnosed (about 52,170 in men and 34,940 in women). About 9,730 people are expected to die of melanoma (about 6,380 men and 3,350 women).Melanoma is more than 20 times more common in whites than in African Americans. Overall, the lifetime risk of getting melanoma is about 2.5% (1 in 40) for whites, 0.1% (1 in 1,000) for African Americans, and 0.5% (1 in 200) for Hispanics. The risk of melanoma increases as people age. The average age of people when the disease is diagnosed is 63. History
Although melanoma is not a new disease, evidence for its occurrence in antiquity is rather scarce.
The trial measured how many subjects experienced complete or partial shrinkage (by a certain amount) of their tumors during treatment (overall response rate). For subjects harboring a PDGFRA exon 18 mutation, the overall response rate was 84%, with 7% having a complete response and 77% having a partial response. For the subgroup of subjects with PDGFRA D842V mutations, the overall response rate was 89%, with 8% having a complete response and 82% having a partial response. While the median duration of response was not reached, 61% of the responding subjects with exon 18 mutations had a response lasting six months or longer (31% of subjects with an ongoing response were followed for less than six months).The FDA approved avapritinib based on evidence from one clinical trial (NCT02508532) of 204 subjects with GIST. The trial was conducted at 17 sites in the United States, Europe and Asia.Avapritinib showed a median PFS of 4.2 months compared to 5.6 months for regorafenib. The difference in median PFS between the avapritinib and regorafenib groups was not statistically significant. The overall response rate was 17 percent for the avapritinib group and 7 percent for the regorafenib group. The VOYAGER trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of avapritinib (N=240) versus regorafenib (N=236) in patients with third- or fourth-line GIST.Avapritinib was approved for medical use in the European Union in September 2020.Ayvakit was granted approval for advanced systemic mastocytosis by the FDA on June 16th 2021. References
Further reading
Wu CP, Lusvarghi S, Wang JC,  et al. (July 2019).