diff --git a/src/common/transformations/tests/sdpa_to_paged_attention_test.cpp b/src/common/transformations/tests/sdpa_to_paged_attention_test.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..0443e7b82de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/common/transformations/tests/sdpa_to_paged_attention_test.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+// Copyright (C) 2018-2024 Intel Corporation
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+//
+
+#include "openvino/pass/sdpa_to_paged_attention.hpp"
+
+#include <gtest/gtest.h>
+
+#include "common_test_utils/test_common.hpp"
+#include "openvino/op/add.hpp"
+#include "openvino/op/scaled_dot_product_attention.hpp"
+#include "openvino/pass/manager.hpp"
+
+using namespace ov;
+
+TEST(SDPATOPATest, SDPANotPresent) {
+    const auto p0 = std::make_shared<op::v0::Parameter>(element::f32, Shape{1, 32, 32});
+    const auto p1 = std::make_shared<op::v0::Parameter>(element::f32, Shape{1, 32, 32});
+    const auto add = std::make_shared<op::v1::Add>(p0, p1);
+    const auto result = std::make_shared<op::v0::Result>(add);
+
+    auto model = std::make_shared<Model>(ResultVector{result}, ParameterVector{p0, p1});
+
+    ov::pass::Manager manager;
+    manager.register_pass<pass::SDPAToPagedAttention>();
+    EXPECT_THROW(manager.run_passes(model), ov::Exception);
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/core/src/pass/sdpa_to_paged_attention.cpp b/src/core/src/pass/sdpa_to_paged_attention.cpp
index 1eaf15c928d..0d71c6a4b0d 100644
--- a/src/core/src/pass/sdpa_to_paged_attention.cpp
+++ b/src/core/src/pass/sdpa_to_paged_attention.cpp
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 #include "openvino/cc/pass/itt.hpp"
 #include "openvino/op/constant.hpp"
 #include "openvino/op/gather.hpp"
+#include "openvino/op/scaled_dot_product_attention.hpp"
 #include "openvino/op/shape_of.hpp"
 #include "openvino/op/unsqueeze.hpp"
 #include "openvino/pass/manager.hpp"
@@ -29,6 +30,11 @@ static std::shared_ptr<v0::Parameter> setName(std::shared_ptr<v0::Parameter> nod
 
 bool ov::pass::SDPAToPagedAttention::run_on_model(const std::shared_ptr<ov::Model>& model) {
     RUN_ON_MODEL_SCOPE(SDPAToPagedAttention);
+
+    OPENVINO_ASSERT(ov::op::util::has_op_with_type<ov::op::v13::ScaledDotProductAttention>(model),
+                    "No ScaledDotProductAttention operation observed in the graph, cannot perform"
+                    "the SDPAToPagedAttention transformation.");
+
     auto max_context_len = setName(std::make_shared<v0::Parameter>(element::i32, PartialShape{}), "max_context_len");
     ParameterVector model_remaining_params = {
         setName(std::make_shared<v0::Parameter>(element::i32, PartialShape{-1}), "past_lens"),