Background: The role of cytoreductive nephrectomy (CN) in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) treated with targeted therapy agents remains controversial. We used reconstructed individual patient data (IPD) to compare the long-term survival outcomes of CN combined with targeted therapy vs. targeted therapy alone for mRCC. Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature using the MEDLINE, Scopus, and Cochrane Library databases (end-of-search date: July 21, 2020). We reconstructed the Kaplan-Meier curves and subsequently recuperated IPD for overall (OS), progression-free (PFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) from individual studies. We performed one-stage random-effects frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses of OS, PFS, and CSS using parametric and non-parametric estimates. We also performed a subgroup analysis focusing on upfront CN and excluding patients with deferred CN. The risk of bias was assessed using the ROBINS-I and RoB2 tools. Results: Fifteen studies fulfilling our inclusion criteria were identified, including fourteen retrospective cohort studies and one randomized controlled trial. No studies were found to be at critical risk of bias. A total of 3,990 patients were included, with 2,234 in the CN group and 1,756 in the non-CN group. Our frequentist meta-analysis showed superior OS (HR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.54-0.62, p<0.0001) and CSS (HR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.53-0.75, p < 0.0001) in favor of CN. No clinically meaningful differences were observed in the PFS between the two groups (HR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.80-1.02, p=0.09). The OS benefit was also observed in the upfront CN subgroup (HR = 0.70, 95% CI 0.63-0.78, p<0.001). Similar results were obtained with non-parametric frequentist and Bayesian approaches (Table). Conclusions: The combination of CN and targeted therapy for mRCC is associated with superior long-term survival outcomes compared with targeted therapy alone. Careful patient selection based on prognostic factors is required to achieve optimal outcomes.