The present disclosure provides partially mature and activated dendritic cells that produce levels of cytokines/chemokines, for example, one or any combination of, and/or all of IL-6, IL-8, IL-12 and/or TNFα, that are correlated with improved clinical outcomes, significantly increased survival times and significantly increased times to tumor or cancer recurrence. The determined threshold amounts of these cytokines can be used for (i) a immunotherapeutic potency test for activated dendritic cells, (ii) selecting responder patients, (iii) rejecting non-responder patients, and (iv) to screen for dendritic cell activation or maturation agents that can also induce the production of the threshold amount of the cytokines/chemokines.
