Significance: Tissue simulating phantoms are an important part of validating biomedical optical techniques. Tissue pathology in inflammation and oedema involves changes in both water and hemoglobin fractions.

Aim: We present a method to create solid gelatin-based phantoms mimicking inflammation and oedema with adjustable water and hemoglobin fractions.

Approach: One store-bought gelatin and one research grade gelatin were evaluated. Different water fractions were obtained by varying the water-to-gelatin ratio. Ferrous stabilized human hemoglobin or whole human blood was added as absorbers, and the stability and characteristics of each were compared. Intralipid^® was used as the scatterer. All phantoms were characterized using spatial frequency domain spectroscopy.

Results: The estimated water fraction varied linearly with expected values (R²  =  0.96 for the store-bought gelatin and R²  =  0.99 for the research grade gelatin). Phantoms including ferrous stabilized hemoglobin stayed stable up to one day but had methemoglobin present at day 0. The phantoms with whole blood remained stable up to 3 days using the store-bought gelatin.

Conclusions: A range of physiological relevant water fractions was obtained for both gelatin types, with the stability of the phantoms including hemoglobin differing between the gelatin type and hemoglobin preparation. These low-cost phantoms can incorporate other water-based chromophores and be fabricated as thin sheets to form multilayered structures.