Alternative to mysql_real_escape_string

I have a WordPress plugin that at one point I need to see if a certain title exists in the database. For 2 years, this code worked fine:

$myposttitle= $wpdb->get_results(
 "select post_title from $wpdb->posts
  where post_title like '%".  mysql_real_escape_string($myTitle) . "%'"
);

However, with php 5.5. and WP 3.9.1, this causes an error because the function mysql_real_escape_string is deprecated.

Any ideas on what other function will properly escape the contents of $myTitle now that I can’t use mysql_real_escape_string anymore?

Thanks

When working with database in WordPress you should never use the low lever mysql_* or mysqli_* functions.

Always use $wpdb methods, in your case you should use prepare():

$query = $wpdb->prepare(
  "SELECT post_title from $wpdb->posts
  WHERE post_title LIKE %s",
  "%" . $myTitle . "%"
);

Moreover, once you are getting a single column, you have easier life using get_col instead of get_results:

$myposttitle = get_col( $query );