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:Our results are consistent with literature demonstrating that recurrence rates are significantly increased in incompletely staged patients, when staging is defined as total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingooophorectomy [18,23,26,27].
Category: