Objective To investigate the value of preoperative maximum tongue pressure （MTP） in predicting acquire swallowing di-sorders after cardiac surgery. Methods A total of 387 patients who were to undergo cardiac surgery were prospectively and consecutively enrolled.General information and perioperative information were collected.Tongue muscle measurement device （TPS100） was used to measure patients′ preoperative MTP, and swallowing function was assessed before surgery and after extubation.Hie-rarchical logistic regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of acquired swallowing disorders.Using postoperative swallowing disorder at 4 hours as the gold standard, the receiver operating characteristic curve （ROC） of the prediction of postoperative acquired swallowing disorders by preoperative MTP was plotted. Results A total of 32 patients developed postoperative acquired swallowing disorders, with an incidence rate of 8.3%.After controlling for general information and perioperative information, preoperative MTP was an independent factor affecting postoperative acquired swallowing disorders in cardiac surgery （OR=0.938,95%CI:0.881-0.999）.The AUC of MTP in predicting acquired swallowing disorders was 0.722（95%CI:0.630～0.814）, with 71.9% sensitivity and 65.1% specificity, and the optimal cutoff value at 43.13 kPa. Conclusion Preoperative MTP in cardiac surgery patients has good predictive value for postoperative acquired swallowing disorders.Increased preoperative MTP may be asso-ciated with lowered risk of postoperative acquired swallowing disorders.Medical staff should pay more attention to patients′ swallowing function after cardiac surgery, especially when preoperative MTP≤43.13 kPa.