What considerations should PHP developers keep in mind when working with relational databases like MySQL in their applications?

When working with relational databases like MySQL in PHP applications, developers should consider security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To prevent SQL injection, developers should use prepared statements and parameterized queries to sanitize user input before executing SQL queries.

// Connect to MySQL database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Prepare a SQL statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $username);

// Sanitize user input
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($mysqli, $_POST['username']);

// Execute the prepared statement
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch results
$result = $stmt->get_result();

// Process results
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    // Do something with the data
}

// Close the statement and connection
$stmt->close();
$mysqli->close();