Comparative Treatment Trials
CAMS is the fifth federally-funded, large, multicenter,
comparative treatment trial addressing prevalent and
disabling mental health conditions in children and adolescents,
and joins ranks with the other large comparative
treatment trials: Multimodal Treatment of Children
with ADHD Study (the MTA),[39] Treatment for Adolescents
with Depression Study (TADS),[40] Pediatric
OCD Treatment Study (POTS),[27] and Treatment of
Resistant Depression in Adolescents (TORDIA) [41].
Each of these large multisite comparative treatment
trials evaluated the most promising psychosocial and
pharmacological treatments for their time and targeted
psychiatric disorder. These landmark clinical trials have
had significant public health value by addressing compelling
practice-relevant questions (e.g., what treatment
should be provided first to a particular child?) and
demonstrated the added benefit of combination treatments.
Equally important, analyses of secondary outcomes
and moderator and mediators of treatment
response have, and will continue to, provided clinicallyrelevant
information for matching patient characteristics
to treatment modality to better personalize care and
maximize patient outcomes.