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.