Evaluate the collective function of references cited together in a given text segment.
Classify their combined role into one of the following categories: 'method', 'background', or 'result'.

Text:Although our cohort also consisted of treatment naïve patients with symptom duration of less than six months, we found that IL-21 levels were not elevated in RA patients compared to healthy controls, a finding which is in contrast to the results of other authors (Rasmussen et al. 2010).
Category: