Sixty women with acne resistant to conventional antibiotic therapy were investigated to determine the incidence of clinical markers of hyperandrogenism and were compared with 60 women who had responded adequately to equivalent therapy. The mean hirsuties scores for the therapy-resistant and therapy-responsive groups were similar (2.0 and 2.1 respectively). The incidence of significnt hirsuties (score>6) was low and not significantly different between the two groups (6.7% and 3.3% respectively). The two groups were also similar in respect of age at menarche, incidence of male and female pattern androgenetic alopecia, keratosis pilaris, acanthosis nigricans and hidradenitis suppurativa. The incidence of menstrual irregularity was lower in the therapy-resistant group but not significantly so. These results show that clinical features of hyperandrogenism and lack of response to conventional antibiotic therapy are not related. Thus clinical markers of hyperandrogenism cannot help the clinician in deciding which female patients will or will not respond to conventional antibiotic therapy.