How can the break statement be used in PHP to exit a loop prematurely?

The break statement in PHP can be used within a loop to prematurely exit the loop before it has completed all iterations. This can be useful when a certain condition is met and you want to stop the loop execution immediately. To use the break statement, simply place it within an if statement that checks for the condition you want to break the loop on. Example:

```php
$numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10];

foreach ($numbers as $number) {
    if ($number == 5) {
        break; // Exit the loop when the number is 5
    }
    echo $number . "\n";
}
```

In this example, the loop will iterate through the numbers array and stop when it reaches the number 5, thanks to the break statement.