The consensus view is that PAD, CAD, ischemic stroke, etc are all manifestations of the pathogenic progression of atherosclerosis. As such, I consider it unlikely that antibiotics will work in PAD if they had no impact on a hard clinical end point related to atherosclerosis in a 4000+ patient trial.
I would never say that this approach will not succeed, but it doesn't seem like a good bet to me. Not that we have the option, of course.
And thank you for taking the time to run this board, and to all of the participants. I've been reading it for months, and have learned a lot!
John