Over the past 10 years, a 50-year-old male has had progressive difficulty hearing, paicularly on the left side. Audiometry testing reveals that he has a bone conduction type of deafness. Which of the following conditions is he most likely to have?

Otosclerosis can be familial, paicularly when it is severe. It results from fibrous ankylosis followed by bony overgrowth of the little ossicles of the middle car. A schwannoma typically involves the eighth cranial nerve and results in a nerve conduction form of deafness. Schwannomas are usually unilateral. although familial neurofibromatosis could result in the appearance of multiple schwannomas. A cholesteatoma is typically a unilateral process that complicates chronic otitis media in a child or young adult otitis media by itself is usually self- limited and uncommon in an adult Chondrosarcomas may involve the skull in older adults but are rare and are solitary bulky masses in the region of the jaw.